Your apiary, hive by hive: introducing Colony Management and Apiary Visits
Keeping bees involves an awful lot of remembering.
Which hive was a bit light last time? Which colony had the queen you hadn’t actually seen yet? When did that treatment go in? Did you feed Hive 3 or was that Hive 4? And why, halfway home, do you suddenly remember the one thing you meant to check? (I do this ALL THE TIME!)
Apiary Forecast has always been about helping make better beekeeping decisions from weather, forage and local conditions. Now we’re bringing more of the colony itself into the picture.
Meet Colony Management
Members can now manage their colonies directly inside their saved apiaries.
Each colony can build up its own useful history from the things you actually record: inspections, stores, colony strength, feeding, treatments, queens and queen development.
Poor nectar collection might be interesting when you see it in the forecast. Poor nectar collection when you recorded a colony as light on stores yesterday is considerably more interesting.
Colony Management helps join those dots.
Things worth checking
Rather than presenting you with another wall of data, Colony Management has Colony priorities.
These are simple prompts based on your own colony records and, where it is useful, current Apiary Forecast conditions.
If you recorded stores as light, that can remain something to check. If you fed the colony afterwards, Apiary Forecast knows the stores have recently been supported, but it does not magically decide that the colony is now full of food. A later observation from you remains the important bit and Apiary Forecast will nudge you.
Likewise, queen status, treatments and other colony events can produce sensible follow-ups.
The idea is quite simple: when you next go to the bees, the things you meant to remember are waiting for you.
And now, Apiary Visit
This is the bit I particularly like. No, I really like this.
Press Start apiary visit and Apiary Forecast turns your active colonies into a practical working round. I created this to be as simple to use as possible.
Why? Well, as a beekeeper myself I know you are a vision of calm until you have to start swapping gloves, stepping over hive parts and suddenly remembering your hive tool is way over there! This is designed to be quick and easy.
You can see which colonies have priorities, when they were last inspected and the latest useful observations before you open anything.
No mobile data? No problem, “Start Apiary Visit” at home and your data is made available offline on your device.
It will then synchronise when you next have a connection. And if you want to backup the old-fashioned way, you can print off sheets.
Inspect Hive 1, save it, and you can go straight to Hive 2.
Then Hive 3. Then Hive 4.
No repeated trip back through menus between colonies.
If you decide not to inspect one, skip it. If you want to change the order, you can. If real life intervenes halfway through, leave the visit and resume it later.
Input is very flexible.
At the end, you get a straightforward summary of what you actually recorded during the visit.
Previous does not mean current
There is one little detail here that I think really helps. When recording a new inspection, Apiary Forecast can show you the previous observation:
Stores: Light · 14 August
or:
Strength: Medium · 14 August
But it doesn’t automatically select that answer for the new inspection as bees have an interesting habit of changing between visits.
If you did not check something this time, record Not checked. An old observation won’t become a new one. The plus side is you can always check that another time.
Queens get a little personality too
Every recorded queen now has a permanent Apiary Forecast reference, so her history can follow her properly.
But there is no reason she has to spend her life being known only as Q-004. Bless.
You can name her yourself or ask Apiary Forecast to suggest one.
You might get Boudica, Flora, Juno, Matilda, Adele, Judi or something equally suitable for the lady in charge.
Don’t like it? Press Suggest another. Or type whatever you please.
The name is for us humans. The permanent Queen reference quietly takes care of the record keeping underneath.
Built for the apiary rather than the office
Colony Management works perfectly well on a desktop, but Apiary Visit has deliberately been designed with a phone and a row of hives in mind.
Big useful controls. Less jumping around. Previous information where it helps. Current priorities before you start. Save one hive and move on to the next.
It’s not intended to tell you how to keep your bees. It’s intended to make it a bit harder to forget what the bees told you last time.