This is a practice that is new to me this year. I have been aware of it for a few years but had dismissed it up to the reasoning that "I know best". Well I have reconsidered this due to advice from a commmercial beekeeper from VT who weighs every colony each year for the past 20 years. The method of hefting a hive from the rear to see if it is heavy just doesn't seem very practicle to me these days. After the first two hives they all feel heavy to me. Why guess??? From a serious perspective it is much better to know how much stores for winter is on the hive rather than to say its heavy! What does that mean anyways? Heavy is quite vague. We all know that it is recommended that a strong colony needs 60 to 100 pounds or so for wintering depending on where you live. A double deep colony counting wood, wax and bees roughly weighs around 70 lbs. This is with the outer cover removed. So all one needs to do is to hit there target weight. So if you want the hives to have 80 pounds of stores for winter. Take the 70 pounds you start with (bees, wood, wax) and add the 80 you want them to have = 150 lbs. If you weigh the hive and it reads 130 lbs you will need to feed to reach the 150 lbs. Or alternatively if it weighs 175 lbs you can give stores away via robinhood method. For a three deep colony add another 20 to thirty pounds to your target weight. Make sure there is ample pollen stores. Below I will demonstrate the method: