Neonach

BeeBase

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Neonach
, 10-08-2011 at 04:16 PM (4370 Views)
About a week ago I registered with the National Bee Units BeeBase website and database. Indicating location and providing information on apiary sites was easy enough, and then I made a start on recording inspections.

By the time I reached the fourth inspection for first two and then four hives at one apiary site, I was already feeling somewhat muddled and frustrated by the database's interface.

Not user-friendly, certainly: for examplle each colony inspection record has to be started from scratch, whereas in most cases the data will be the same as last time, but with a few changes.

It but also not really designed to meet the needs of bee-keepers, for example there's no-where to record what actions were taken, or what will need to be taken, or general notes about availability of forage, or what feed stuff has been provided in the feed tray or frame.

I realized that I would still have to keep my own records, so rather than waste time with duplicating effort on a database of little value to me, I've just given up. Of course I'll report any notifiable disease - probably by email, and I'll keep the information on apiaries up to date, but otherwise I'm afraid I shall not be using BeeBase as clearly was hoped for by NBU. A pity, as I can see the value of standardized information. But the truth is that databases are very rigid things, and unless they are absolutely up to the mark, they may be nothing more than a useless burden.

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Comments

  1. gavin's Avatar
    You are right. I hadn't looked at that until now, but it doesn't seem like a sensible place to keep colony records. Nellie had thoughts and even a working model I think of a database for people to keep their own records. This year, with more colonies and more happening, my note-taking has been whittled down further. There is no way to invent a system to cover everyone's needs.
  2. Neils's Avatar
    I did and I had a lot of very useful feedback from the people that tried it out, none of which I've actually put into a new version yet. Problem is that it wasn't very user friendly and it asked for far too much information which far outweighed it's good a features like tracking queen lineage. With the benefit of another season behind me I might have another go at putting it together.

    There are web based inspection record services that you might want to take a look at, obvious downside is that all your hive records are sat in someone else's computer and if they go, so do your records (and the small matter of how much you trust them not to do dastardly things with the data they collect).
  3. Neonach's Avatar
    I think I would trust NBU as far as confidentiality is concerned, but more of a concern would be that funding would be cut and with it the BeeBase webservice! So another requirement for such a service is that data can be downloaded (and uploaded) in a generic format (ieg CSV or OpenOffice), of a system for syncing local records (originals) with server copies. Anyway for now I'm content enough using very simple and flexible methods to keep records.