About Apiary Forecast

What Apiary Forecast does

Apiary Forecast takes weather forecast data and applies a proprietary, tested, heuristic decision-support model. The model uses practical beekeeping assumptions to turn raw weather conditions into useful guidance.

Saved apiaries make the forecasts more relevant to your own location, while Colony Management lets you keep records of inspections, feeding, treatments, queens, splits, artificial swarms, uniting colonies and other important events.

That means Apiary Forecast can help answer questions such as:

• Is the weather suitable for opening colonies today?
• Is there a better inspection window later in the day?
• Are conditions likely to support flying, pollen collection or nectar collection?
• Is recent or upcoming weather likely to increase swarm vigilance?
• Are stores more likely to need attention when forage and nectar collection are poor?
• Is there a useful queen-mating window coming up?
• Which colonies have something due, overdue or coming up?
• What did I record at the last inspection?
• What did I decide needed doing next?
• Can I work through my colonies at the apiary even if mobile signal disappears?

Apiary Visit is designed for real apiary conditions. You can prepare your apiaries while you’re online, then continue inspections if you lose signal. Inspections, notes, skipped colonies and follow-up actions can be stored on the device and synchronised when you’re back online.

If you decide during an offline inspection that something needs doing later, such as expanding a nuc, splitting a colony, checking a queen, feeding or carrying out a treatment, you can record it as a follow-up and finish it when you’re back online.

Apiary Forecast is not AI. It’s not a replacement for training, experience, local knowledge, disease awareness, colony checks or common sense. It is a structured weather and colony decision-support tool for beekeepers. And it’s helpful.

Who it is for

For newer beekeepers, Apiary Forecast can help explain why some days are better suited to inspections, swarm awareness, forage activity or queen mating than others. It can also reduce the temptation to open colonies simply because the calendar says it is time, or because someone online says everyone should be inspecting right now.

Guided Start helps newer members find the parts of Apiary Forecast that are most useful to what they are trying to do, while seasonal context helps bring forward the things that are more relevant at that time of year.

For experienced beekeepers, the value is quicker triage. Apiary Forecast gives a structured read across inspection conditions, forage access, nectar and pollen collection, stores pressure, swarm-weather suitability and colony records, helping you prioritise your apiary visits during busy or unsettled periods.

Hives Today brings together things that genuinely need attention, including due and overdue tasks, upcoming work, inspection opportunities and colony follow-ups, without trying to replace your own judgement.

It’s especially useful where weather changes quickly, where the season is short, where colonies are spread across different local conditions, or where you simply want one place to keep the weather, records and next jobs connected.

What Apiary Forecast is not

Apiary Forecast is not a guarantee of colony behaviour.

It does not know everything about your individual colonies. It can only use the weather, location information and colony records that are available to it. It cannot see inside a hive, diagnose disease, confirm queen status, judge temperament, know the exact shelter around every colony, or decide whether a colony actually needs opening.