Why beekeepers monitor a hive
Opening a hive disturbs the colony and costs the bees heat and time. Monitoring tells you how the colony is doing from the outside. It helps you decide when to add a honey super, when to feed, and whether winter stores are holding up.
What gets measured
Hive weight. A scale under the hive is the most useful tool. A colony that gains weight day after day is bringing in nectar. A colony that loses weight in winter is eating its stores, and the rate tells you how long they will last.
Temperature inside the hive. A healthy colony keeps its brood nest at roughly 93 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (34 to 35 degrees Celsius). A probe near the brood that reads far from that range can mean trouble, such as a queenless colony or a chilled brood.
Humidity. Bees ripen nectar by fanning off moisture. A humidity probe shows how hard the colony is working and when the air in the hive is too damp for winter.
Local weather. Bees fly when it is warm enough, dry and not too windy. Our bee weather report shows current conditions for your ZIP code, so you can pick the right day to open a hive.
Reading a nectar flow with a scale
During a strong flow, a scale can show gains of several pounds in a day. The pattern matters more than any single number: weight climbs by day while bees are foraging and dips overnight as nectar dries down. When the climb flattens for several days, the flow is over and it is time to think about pulling honey.
Real data on this site
The Hive Ops Center turns live weather and the NOAA Kp index into foraging, inspection and swarm-risk guidance for your ZIP code. The Magneto-Bee Tracker shows the planetary Kp index from NOAA, a measure of geomagnetic activity that researchers have studied in relation to bee navigation.
Why this page changed
An earlier version of this page presented a sensor dashboard with MGO readings and apiary locations in New Zealand. Those figures were simulated for demonstration and were not readings from a real apiary. Showing simulated numbers as live data misleads readers, so we replaced the page with an honest explainer.