Honey Bee Management System — User Manual

Honey Bee Management System — User Manual

Clear, concise guidance for recording and managing apiary, hive, queen and inspection data, sharing access, and using reminders and reports.

Objective

Provide a simple, secure way to store, maintain and share your beekeeping records.

  • Store bee and hive data in an organised database
  • View or update other keepers' records when they grant permission
  • Grant others view or update access to your records
  • Receive reminders for checks and actions

Key terminology

  • Partners — people permitted to update your records
  • Friends — people permitted to view your records
  • Group — a named collection of people used to grant view access collectively
  • Update focus — the person whose records you may modify; initially yourself; you can change it to any user who has listed you as a partner
  • View focus — the person whose records you are inspecting; initially yourself; you can change it to any user who has listed you as a friend
  • Reminders — notifications set to prompt checks or actions
  • Note: partnership and friendship are not reciprocal by default

Security and personal information

  • Only minimal personal data is collected: email address, display name, and region. Display name may be an alias.
  • Email addresses are used for registration, login and for system-generated single-recipient emails (sent from the system email address).
  • Access to the system is granted by clicking a single-use link sent to the registering email address.
  • Precise personal or apiary addresses are not collected or shared.
  • The authors take care to protect data integrity but cannot guarantee it; users should maintain their own backups where appropriate.

Objects stored in the system

  • Apiary — name and optional photos
  • Hive — numeric identifier within an apiary plus hive properties
  • Queen — named individual with start/end dates, properties and optional assignment to a hive (one queen per hive)
  • Inspection — record of a hive inspection on a given date
  • Split — record of splitting a hive to create a new hive

Hive properties

  • Apiary — apiary name containing the hive
  • Hive number — integer identifier within the apiary
  • Queen state — Queened, Queenless, Queen Cell, Laying worker, or Maybe
  • Mother — origin of queen cells or eggs moved in
  • Brood box type — options such as wooden national, poly national, 14×12, NUC, etc.
  • Number of supers — integer
  • In use — whether the hive is active

Queen properties

  • Name
  • Date start — acquisition date
  • Date finished — date the queen left the hive
  • Type — bee strain
  • Mother — known mother or NOT KNOWN
  • Colour — red, blue, green, white or yellow
  • Source — who the queen was acquired from
  • Marked — yes/no
  • Clipped — yes/no

Inspection record fields

Most fields are optional; some values are auto‑filled with sensible defaults.

  • Date — defaults to today
  • Brood box type — defaults to last value; changeable via dropdown
  • Number of supers — defaults to last value
  • Did you see the queen? — optional (Yes/No)
  • Frames of brood — optional integer
  • Observed brood states — checkboxes for Eggs, Unsealed larvae, Sealed larvae, Drone brood, Queen cells
  • Frames of food — optional integer
  • Temper — dropdown selection
  • Queen state — defaults to previous inspection; editable via dropdown
  • Added a frame of eggs? — if yes, select source hive from your active hives
  • Added a queen cell? — if yes, select source hive and method (on brood frame, grafted, or plugged)
  • If a queen hatched — optional: assign a name
  • Mark or remark queen? — dropdown yes/no
  • Clip queen? — dropdown yes/no
  • Requeening — optional: pick an unassigned queen from your list
  • Added food? — choose type from dropdown
  • Varroa treatment — record added/removed with removal and next-application intervals when appropriate
  • Harvested honey? — specify number of frames and whether super or brood frames
  • Set a user reminder? — specify days until reminder and reminder text
  • Notes — free-text field
  • Attach photos — optional upload for inspection record

Split (creating a new hive) — recordable fields

  • Date of split — defaults to today
  • New brood box type — select via dropdown
  • New hive number — defaults to next available number
  • Apiary for new hive — required; select from dropdown
  • Frames moved (brood) — required integer
  • Frames moved (food) — required integer
  • Did you move the queen? — required; Yes/No/NOT KNOWN
  • To the queenless box, did you add? — required; choose one: Nothing; newly acquired queen; queen from another of your hives; brood frame with queen cell(s); grafted queen cell; plugged queen cell
  • If adding from another hive, select the source hive
  • If introducing a new queen, select the queen by name from your unassigned queens
  • Notes — optional free-text

Reminders

  • Reminders notify users of checks or actions (e.g., remove treatment, inspect a recent graft).
  • Reminders are generated automatically after certain actions (for example, varroa treatment or introduction of a queen cell) or can be set manually with a specific delay in days.
  • Delivery options: by email on the day the reminder triggers; shown at login on the trigger day; or included in the Latest States report (covering from 2 days ago to 5 days ahead).
  • Users can enable or disable any delivery method for their account.

Available reports

All reports use the currently selected view focus. Any displayed report can be emailed with a single click.

  • Latest state of each hive
  • Hives currently in use
  • Active queens
  • All queens in date order
  • Queen lineage
  • Inspection results
  • Splits
  • Honey harvest
  • Varroa treatment record
  • Feeds given