Apiary Forecast
Bee Weather Intelligence for better beekeeping decisions
Across Apiary Forecast today
Colony records that help you manage what happens next
A useful hive record shouldn’t just tell you what you found last time. It should help you decide what deserves attention next.
Colony Management keeps the history of each colony together, from inspections and feeding to queens, treatments, stores and major colony events. It then uses those records alongside Apiary Forecast’s local weather and seasonal context to bring useful follow-ups to the surface.
So when you return to the apiary, you’re not starting from memory.
Give every colony its own continuing record
Colonies sitting next to each other can behave completely differently.
One may be building strongly while another needs more space. One may have plenty of stores, another may be getting light. A queen may have recently changed, a treatment may need following up, or there may simply be something you wanted to look at again.
Colony Management keeps that information with the colony it belongs to.
You can organise active colonies within your saved apiaries, choose whether a unit is a full colony, nuc, mating or queen-rearing unit or another type, and keep its history as it develops.
BBKA makes the practical value of individual colony records rather well: once you’re managing several hives, it’s very easy to become confused about how each is doing without a record for each colony. Trust me, I’m easily confused, so I’m in!
Inspections that record what you actually saw
Each new inspection starts as a fresh observation.
Your previous information can be there for reference, but it isn’t silently copied into today’s record. That means an old observation doesn’t become today’s fact because you didn’t change a field.
A Rapid Inspection lets you record colony strength, whether the queen was seen, eggs or young brood, brood condition, queen cells, stores, available space, temperament and disease or pest concerns. You can also record the number of supers, add inspection notes and set a follow-up.
The distinction between Not checked and a genuine negative observation is deliberate. If you didn’t assess something during that inspection, you can say exactly that.
This fits neatly with National Bee Unit advice to have a purpose for an examination, consult the colony records beforehand and know what you’re looking for before opening the hive.
National Bee Unit: Handling and Examining a Colony of Bees
Colony Priorities bring the useful bits forward
This is where keeping records starts paying you back.
Colony Priorities takes information you’ve recorded and turns it into current issues, follow-ups and useful upcoming checks.
Instead of reading backwards through several inspections looking for the thing you meant to remember, Colony Management can bring it forward. Quite conveniently.
A priority can also include the next useful inspection window when Inspection Outlook has one available, with a direct route into the relevant forecast.
That means the system can connect what you found in the colony with when the weather next gives you a useful opportunity to deal with it. It’s a much more practical use of records than simply storing them!
Seasonal context changes what deserves attention
Colony Management also knows where you are in the beekeeping year.
The colony dashboard can show a Seasonal Focus, using the current beekeeping phase, local development timing and relevant Apiary Forecast context.
That helps put individual observations into perspective.
A stores observation, for example, means something different during rapid spring expansion, the main summer flow and autumn preparation. Space, queen activity and follow-up jobs change in importance through the season too.
Follow a queen as an individual
Queens have their own proper records rather than existing only as a tick box on an inspection form.
The Queens register gives each recorded queen a continuing identity and colony history. A proper timeline, if you will!
You can record a queen already present in an established colony without having to invent details you don’t know. If you have more information, you can add her name, year, whether she’s marked or clipped, notes and her mother or source queen.
Queens can move between your colonies while keeping the same identity and history.
That also makes maternal relationships useful. Where you’ve recorded them, Colony Management can show the queen’s mother and maternal line rather than losing the relationship every time the queen changes colony.
And if you fancy naming her, you can. Still optional. Still no evidence that queens actually care.
Queen development joins the record too
Queen Development is tied into Colony Management rather than sitting as an isolated forecast.
You can follow replacement-queen development from events such as a split or swarm, record observations as the sequence progresses and move between the colony record and Queen Mating Outlook when mating weather becomes relevant.
Later, when laying is confirmed, that becomes part of the colony and queen history.
So the story doesn’t stop at Queen cells seen. You can follow what happened afterwards.
Read about Queen Mating Weather
Record the work that happens between inspections
Plenty of useful beekeeping happens without a full brood-box inspection.
Colony Management lets you add dated colony events for feeding, treatments, harvests, swarm observations, queen events, super or equipment changes and general notes.
Feeding records can include feed type, amount and unit. Treatment records can hold the treatment or product, application or start date, end or removal date, batch or reference and a dose or application note.
Harvests can be recorded by amount and unit, while super and equipment changes can record what changed and the resulting super count.
That gives the colony history a much better picture of what you’ve actually done.
For veterinary medicines, the UK’s VMD allows the statutory records to be kept electronically and requires medicine records for food-producing animals to be retained for at least five years. The formal record has its own required information, so your Colony Management treatment history works alongside those requirements.
VMD: Bee medicines and beekeeper record keeping
Follow stores between inspections
Stores observations can do more than sit in the last inspection record.
If you enable Colony Stores Tracking for a hive, your recorded Stores level becomes the starting point for following how that colony’s Stores Position may be changing between inspections.
Subsequent Stores Pressure, nectar conditions and any feeding you record can then add context to that starting point.
That gives you a colony-specific Stores Position while the environmental Stores Pressure continues to describe what’s happening around the apiary.
The two work together particularly well because one begins outside the hive and the other begins with what you actually recorded inside it.
Read about Stores Pressure and Colony Stores Tracking
Manage real changes in the colony
Colonies don’t remain static through the season, so their records shouldn’t either.
Within Colony Management you can handle the bigger changes too.
You can split a colony or record an artificial swarm, unite colonies, move a colony to another of your saved apiaries, expand a nuc into a full hive, archive a colony when it ceases to be active and reactivate it later if appropriate.
Those relationships are retained.
So when one colony came from another by a split, or two colonies were later united, that history doesn’t disappear into a note field. Colony Management can show the colony’s lineage and relationships as part of its record.
See how the season developed
The Season & History view is where individual records start turning into a useful picture of the year.
You can choose a season and see a summary of recorded activity followed by the dated history behind it.
It brings together observation progression, queen history, treatment history, major colony events and the colony’s timeline.
That makes it much easier to answer questions such as:
- How did this colony develop?
- When did its stores start falling?
- When did the queen change?
- What happened around the split?
- How much intervention did this colony need compared with another?
BBKA similarly encourages beekeepers to use colony records not just during inspections but to review colony performance and management over time.
Fix a recent recording mistake cleanly
Recording data at an apiary sometimes involves cold fingers, gloves, bees and the occasional tap on the wrong thing.
Colony Management gives recent entries a 24-hour correction window.
Straightforward history entries can be deleted during that period. For operations that changed the colony itself, such as a split or unite, Undo operation restores the earlier consistent state rather than merely removing a line from the history.
Dependent information is then recalculated.
That’s particularly handy when a mistaken entry would otherwise affect priorities, Stores Position, queen relationships or later history.
Keep hive-monitor dashboards with the colony
If you’re using BroodMinder or BeehiveMonitoring, you can attach a shared dashboard to the relevant colony.
The dashboard can then be opened from the colony record alongside the observations and management history you’re already using.
If the physical monitor moves to another colony, its dashboard record can move with it.
It’s a small convenience, but it avoids another round of hunting through bookmarks when you’re trying to work out what happened to one particular hive.
Prefer paper at the hive sometimes?
That’s fine too.
Colony Management can produce a printable inspection sheet for an individual colony, so using digital records doesn’t require you to stand at an open hive tapping at a phone if that isn’t how you want to work.
BBKA’s own apiary guidance recommends taking colony records with you when you visit the bees. With Apiary Forecast you can use electronic or paper records.
You can bring the results back into the colony record afterwards with a cuppa.
Or use Apiary Visit, which is designed specifically for working through the apiary on your phone.
Hives Today gives you the short version
Detailed records belong in Colony Management. But you shouldn’t need to open every colony to discover what needs attention today.
That’s where Hives Today comes in.
It can display Colony Priorities, due or overdue tasks and Stores Position information across your apiaries, alongside the day’s useful forecast.
So Colony Management can remain the detailed history while Hives Today becomes the quick member starting point:
What are conditions like, and which hives deserve my attention?
That’s why Hives Today works well as the main member entrance to Apiary Forecast.
Your records become part of the working day
Colony Management isn’t intended to be a filing cabinet you update because you feel you ought to keep records.
The useful loop is much simpler:
you inspect and manage the colony, the record remembers what happened, Colony Priorities bring forward what matters next, Hives Today helps you see where attention is needed, and Apiary Visit takes that information back to the hives.
Good records save you from having to reconstruct the season from memory and Apiary Forecast makes those records work a little harder for you.
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Useful UK guidance
National Bee Unit: Handling and Examining a Colony of Bees
The NBU specifically recommends keeping colony records and consulting them before an examination so you know the priority actions and can prepare what you’ll need.
British Beekeepers Association: March in the Apiary
Useful advice on maintaining a record card for each colony and using records to support decisions as the season develops.
British Beekeepers Association: June in the Apiary
Includes colony records among the practical essentials to take with you when working at the apiary.
Veterinary Medicines Directorate: Record keeping requirements
Current UK guidance on veterinary medicine records, including electronic records and the five-year retention requirement for food-producing animals.