What the data from thousands of inspections tells us, and how to use the app well.
Moving a hive across a garden is harder than moving it across a county, because bees remember where home is to the metre. Why that happens, the three feet or three miles rule, how to move a hive a short way or to a new apiary, and how to close it up and carry it without losing bees.
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A good site makes an average beekeeper look good, and a bad one defeats a good beekeeper. What bees need from a site, what you need from it, how to keep neighbours on side, the rules that may apply, how many hives a site can hold, and how to tell after a season whether the site was right.
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From capped frames to clear jars in a day. The kit you need, how uncapping works, the difference between tangential and radial extractors, crush and strain for a hive or two, filtering and settling, bottling, and what to do with the wet supers and the cappings afterwards.
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Honey is ready when the bees say so, and they say it with wax. The share of capped cells that makes a frame safe to take, the shake test for the rest, what water content means and how a refractometer settles it, when in the season to take the supers off, and what to leave behind.
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The figure depends less on the bees than on the length of your winter. Typical stores for mild, temperate and cold climates, what a full frame of honey weighs, how to judge a hive by hefting it, when to check, and what to do if a hive comes up light.
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Two ratios, one rule about honey supers, and a handful of mistakes that cost colonies. Which sugar is safe, how to mix 1:1 and 2:1 by weight or by volume, when each ratio is fed, which feeder suits which job, and how to feed without starting a robbing frenzy.
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The first look inside after winter is the inspection most likely to do harm: too early, too long, every frame pulled. When it is warm enough, what to check from outside first, the five questions the first visit has to answer, what to do about each answer, and how it sets up swarm season.
Read the post »A colony's winter is mostly decided before winter starts. Eight jobs in the order they fall, from the late-summer varroa treatment and the queen check to stores, entrances, mouse guards, damp and wind, and the notes that tell you which hives to check first in a cold snap.
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Honey sells; the question is whether it sells for more than it costs, across enough hives, to be worth the work. Where a beekeeping business makes its money, what each hive really costs, how many hives an income takes, how to price honey, and the rules that come with selling food.
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Most colony losses blamed on winter were decided in August. How the mite peak and the winter bees overlap, what a summer treatment during the flow can do, why waiting for autumn is often too late, and the midwinter oxalic dose that cleans up after both.
Read the post »What to record at every hive, how often, and what the law asks for. Then an honest comparison of the three places beekeepers keep records, why the spreadsheet breaks somewhere past twenty hives, and a record sheet template you can copy today.
Read the post »Typical figures for the first hive, the second one, and the year-on-year costs of feed, treatments, replacements and jars, with the income side alongside. What the averages leave out, and why the number that matters is the one your own records will give you.
Read the post »A month-by-month beekeeping calendar for temperate climates, with the southern-hemisphere month alongside each northern one: when to inspect, when swarm season starts, when to add supers, when to count and treat for varroa, when to harvest and when to feed.
Read the post »When to treat, what with, and what to write down. Monitoring thresholds, the four families of treatment with their temperature windows and courses, what can be used with supers on, whether oxalic acid is safe for bees, and a season plan for both hemispheres.
Read the post »How often to inspect, how long it should take, what weather to wait for, and the fourteen readings to take every time you open a hive, with what each one means. Print it, or say it out loud to the app.
Read the post »A record without a date is an anecdote. Almost everything the app does later, trends, treatment courses, withdrawal periods, cost per kilo, and the records an inspector may ask for, rests on the dullest field on the screen.
Read the post »Autumn feeding done to a date feeds colonies that did not need it and leaves short the ones that did. The hive tells you which is which, if you wrote it down. Syrup ratios, how much a colony needs for winter, when to stop, and the reading that decides it.
Read the post »You will not see the queen most times you open a hive, and you do not need to. Eggs, queen cells and her age answer what finding her would, in a fraction of the time and with the hive open for a fraction as long.
Read the post »A season total tells you whether it was a good year. A per-hive figure tells you which colonies earned their keep, which were carried by the others, and what to do with each group. It costs one minute at the extractor.
Read the post »Most beekeepers can tell you which apiary is their best. Very few can say by how much, or why. The answer decides where hives go next spring, and it only exists if a season of records is tied to the site.
Read the post »Recording capped brood separately from eggs is the single most useful thing you can do in an inspection. The arithmetic behind it, what a healthy pattern looks like, and the two readings that should stop you in your tracks.
Read the post »Every second spent tapping a phone over an open hive is a second the bees are getting warmer and you are getting stung. The interface is the problem, so the app does not have one: ten spoken phrases, a beep, and the phone stays in your pocket.
Read the post »Most varroa treatments are a course, not an event, and the interval exists because mites hide inside capped brood. A half-finished course is worse than none. Here is how each family of treatment is scheduled, and how the app keeps the third dose from being the one that slips.
Read the post »Most beekeepers know their total spend and their total income. Very few know which apiary is carrying the others, what a kilo of honey cost them to produce, or which hives lost money for two years running. The per-hive figure is the one that changes what you do next season.
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