By: Ann Harman
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of BEEKeeping Your First Three Years
Let’s Face It – We Can Remember Some Things Some of the Time, But Not All Things All of the Time
Spring is here! New beekeepers are just putting together their hives and awaiting the arrival of their bees. Those that began beekeeping last year are now entering the fun stage of producing their first honey crop.
Flowers are blooming – do you know which ones are bee forage? Drones are out and about – do you see any signs of swarm preparations? How are the queens doing? Do you remember which colony seemed to be a little slow getting started this Spring? Was it the one in the hive on the right? Or was that the one that…Are you keeping records?
Let’s face it – we can remember some things some of the time but not all things all of the time. We do not open up our hives and inspect the colonies daily. That might help us remember but it certainly does not help the bees (too much disturbance). So keeping records is an important part of being a beekeeper. Is there only one way to keep records? No. Fortunately today there are many ways to keep records. You can try several or a combination to see what works best for you. As you progress in your beekeeping you may consider changing your methods.
First you need to select what is important to know and to follow. Some items will be on the health of the colony, others on general information. Time of year. Queens, marked or not. Food supplies. Brood pattern. Varroa. Small hive beetle. Signs of a disease. Temperament. Treatments. Think about what you look for when you open a hive, when you do something for the colony, and what your plans are for the next inspection. Think about what is seasonal, such as enough stores for Winter in your area of the country. Make your own list. Yes, you can modify it as you use it. If you make it too lengthy and complicated you will probably abandon it after a few times. Keep it simple. Keep it organized. A beginning beekeeper will want more details than one who is experienced. Among those details, noted by a beginning beekeeper, can be a reminder for questions to be asked or something to look up in a book.
You can certainly add some information about weather and bee forage plants since they influence what your colonies need. If you are using certain treatments for Varroa you can add reminders about removal times. Do you need to take some tools or other items to the beeyard on your next visit? A note in your records will save you running back and forth for something forgotten. Well, that is provided you remembered to check your records before leaving for the beeyard. As you use your records, you will remember to read them before putting on your veil. You may actually find you can postpone your inspection for a few days or a week. Keep records only on colonies that have a problem? That won’t work over time.
Once upon a time a beekeeper decided to record information on a small sheet of paper. Each hive would have its own piece of paper right on top of the inner cover. That sounds very handy – each hive held its own information. However bees are very tidy little insects. A piece of paper, even on the inner cover was “trash” and needed to be removed. The only way to do that was to shred the paper and carry it down and out the entrance. If you ever considered this plan of record keeping, the bees will let you know it doesn’t work.
Some beekeepers have scribbled notes on the outside of a hive itself. Sometimes the notes would be scribbled on the top of the outer cover. That could be considered “permanent” until you need to combine colonies. Now the “new” hive has “old” information on a hive body. That information is no longer relevant unless you just transfer the frames into a new hive body. Furthermore you have nothing to remind you to “bring feeder” the next visit to the beeyard. What happens if that particular hive part needs repair or a fresh coat of paint? Keeping records scribbled on the hive could get quite complicated.
However keeping records in a notebook is possible. It will travel back and forth from home to apiary and back home again. You can write down necessary information for the colonies, make a note which hive will need monitoring for swarm cells before other ones and if some seem to be short of food. You will have to review your notes before leaving for the beeyard or you will forget to bring the feeder and syrup.
If you wear gloves they will become sticky with propolis and wax. So will your fingers if you do not use gloves. Pages will get stuck together but can be separated without loss of information. So a notebook will work until the day you hastened indoors, leaving the notebook outside in a downpour. As you add colonies to your beeyard a single simple notebook will be outgrown. It can be outgrown even in one bee season. More notebooks? A ring notebook with different sections, one for each hive? That would work. Such projects can easily get out of control.
Then there is the Brick Method, also known as the Rock Method. Here you must create your own dictionary with either one or two ordinary bricks or with rocks. Those are handy – they form a weight on the outer cover to keep it from blowing off in a high wind. An example from a “dictionary” would be a single brick laid flat, sides parallel with the rectangular shape of the telescoping over means “all is well.” A brick standing upright could mean “a serious problem” (queenless or needs feed immediately or whatever meaning you create). The Brick Method has its limits but can be handy to indicate something simple such as the hive you just requeened, and you wish to check it in a few days.
You can put your cell phone, with its assorted capabilities, and your computer to use. Fortunately your computer, living inside your house, is protected from propolis, wax, honey-sticky fingers and rainstorms. Taking your cell phone to the beeyard does expose it to dangers from sticky substances, getting dropped inside a hive, getting dropped outside a hive and getting stepped on, and maybe even getting trapped in a hive because you were not paying attention when reassembling a hive. However being able to photo a hive inhabitant and having it identified as NOT a small hive beetle makes a cell phone a handy beekeeping tool. It speaks to your computer so that you can construct how you want your information arranged. Keep in mind that you want a way to have reminders to take things to the beeyard next time (which could be a week away) or to make and bring more syrup to a certain hive in a few days.
You can very easily step from the Brick Age into the Electronic Age today. Yes, you can set up something on your computer but it just may take some time and you may find your initial plan keeps getting reorganized until it settles down to just what you want. You can certainly start from scratch. However, when you have a bit of time just Google this term in your computer: beekeeping records. Take a cup of coffee and a snack with you because you may well spend hours reading and looking at all the suggestions.
You will see general information, templates that you can try or modify for your needs and much discussion on how to keep records. One thing is quite obvious – it is necessary to keep records that will help your beekeeping. Do you see anything useful? If so, give it a try. A good template will increase your observations when opening a hive.
Now the next term for you to investigate online would be: beekeeping software. Get another cup of coffee and snack so that you can spend some time investigating the various ones offered today. Some of these will give you a free trial. Go ahead and take advantage of a free trial so that you can decide whether this method of keeping records is what you want to do. Having software, such as HiveTracks, may be the best way to start keeping records for new beekeepers in their first few years. Starting out with bees will seem to have so much to consider when opening a hive that guidance will be like having a mentor with you. Software is usually updated from time to time, reflecting the feedback beekeepers give. This updating does keep beekeepers up with the times.
Yes, there is still one more way to keep records. Yes, still another cup of coffee and snack. Here are the terms to use: beehive monitoring. In a sense this monitoring is not so much as record keeping as it is keeping track of what is going on inside the hive itself. The internet is filled with monitoring systems and equipment, both domestic and foreign. They are constantly being improved.
Equipment – to use a monitoring system, a beekeeper will have to obtain an assortment of in hive monitors, generally for hive weight, in hive and outside temperature and humidity. Some have an acoustic sensor for the sounds being made. Commercial pollinators may well appreciate some systems with anti-theft equipment.
Each system of monitoring will have its own way of reporting the data it is continually collecting. In general what the beekeeper is guided to do is up to the beekeeper. For example, a sudden weight loss during a nice sunny day in Spring could mean a swarm has just left the hive. It is possible that it bivouacked near the beeyard and now can be captured. On the other hand, what else could cause a significant sudden drop in weight?
Suppose that colony did swarm. Can a beginning beekeeper now realize what has happened to the original colony? Were queen cells on the bottom bar seen? What will be the progress of this left-behind colony? Such questions really cannot be answered by looking at a computer. However, keeping a record of that swarm time can make a beekeeper more watchful of swarm cells the following year.
The bees themselves make wonderful teachers. Actions, such as requeening a colony, cannot be done electronically – they require the beekeeper’s eyes and hands. Watching a queen busily laying eggs, or a worker chewing her way out of her cell are beekeeping scenes that all beekeepers enjoy. The lives of bees can only be truly seen by opening a hive.