Records / information recorded on the apiary

**Poly Hive** · 28-10-2012, 08:11 PM

I am minimal. I use bricks on top of my roofs for two reasons. One is to hold down the roof... note to roof makers... a deep side keeps the damn thing on... sheesh KISS. The brick is informative. Upright it says issue to be addressed. In line front to back it says all ok. There are other messages I an use so invent your own.

I have a record card on the CB. It is a blank sheet of paper and reads as follows.

Q G/C

23/4/12 8+1 ok

Translated... the queen is green marked and clipped.

On the date the brood is at 8 frames plus one, which means one stores comb was bruised and inserted in the brood frames in the expectation it will be brood in a weeks time.
And so on.

PH

**Jon** · 28-10-2012, 08:37 PM

Anyone interested in queen rearing or bee improvement will need more than bricks on the lid in terms of record keeping although I take the point that it is useful to have and external indicator re. imminent action needed. I stick drawing pins into apideas for the same reason.
Roger Patterson has a good record sheet which records a years colony inspections on a sheet of A4.

**Mellifera Crofter** · 28-10-2012, 08:44 PM

On RP's record sheet, what does QMP stand for?

**Jon** · 28-10-2012, 08:47 PM

queen mating problem.
I use that column to record the level of stores in the colony.

**GRIZZLY** · 28-10-2012, 08:50 PM

Just got back from the National Honey Show where I purchased a clever disc called "APIS" or apiary management system . Covers EVERYTHING !. My wife , A teacher of Maths and Computing, has promised to run the thing for me so, from next year on I will have a complete set of data on all aspects of my colonies and beekeeping - I hope !!. Previously used to keep hive records based on information on the queen, this got complicated if the colony swarmed and I lost her. Hopefully the hive record went on with the replacement queen. If the swarm with the original queen was hived then the original hive record was transferred to the swarm. A complicated system that soon swamped itself. HOWEVER - time will tell.

**Neils** · 28-10-2012, 09:42 PM

Originally Posted by Poly Hive

I am minimal. I use bricks on top of my roofs for two reasons. One is to hold down the roof... note to roof makers... a deep side keeps the damn thing on... sheesh KISS. The brick is informative. Upright it says issue to be addressed. In line front to back it says all ok. There are other messages I an use so invent your own.

I have a record card on the CB. It is a blank sheet of paper and reads as follows.

Q G/C

23/4/12 8+1 ok

Translated... the queen is green marked and clipped.

On the date the brood is at 8 frames plus one, which means one stores comb was bruised and inserted in the brood frames in the expectation it will be brood in a weeks time.
And so on.

PH

One of our guys here writes in a permanent marker on the roof of the hive. It's basically a circle with some bits going on, While it's simple to him and simple in principle when, like now, I try to explain it, it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. It's his system that tells him everything he needs to know about the hive when he sees it next.

The Bricks seem sensible and your code is not a million miles away from how I take my own notes. Each, as they say, to their own. I think the important thing is, find a system that works for you. I don't expect mine to be suitable for anyone else not anyone else's to be that natural to me. I definitely agree with the principle of KISS (keep it simple, stupid). When I started out I wrote nearly a novel at each inspection and it took me longer to write the notes about each frame than it did to look at it. Looking back I think that's a forgivable error and it's not something I'd berate someone for, just maybe point out that while the hive is open and you write that essay about the frame of foundation that had no bees on that you're making life unnecessarily hard on yourself and your bees.

I can go through an entire apiary with my current system and write up the notes watching the world go by with a drink and a smoke at the end of it and I like those few minutes when I'm done actively beekeeping but don't want to leave the apiary just yet.

**Mellifera Crofter** · 29-10-2012, 12:04 PM

Similar to visual cues of bricks and circles, this summer, on a course in Colonsay, I learned to use coloured drawing pins to indicate the age of the queen at a glance. The drawing pin corresponds to the colour of the year in which she hatched, and if you don't know what year she's from, AA uses red. When it's a red year, he doubles the pins to indicate a red queen.

I had more colours than the five basic colours in the box of drawing pins I've subsequently bought, so I use black to indicate "I don't know" and two pins of the same colour if I've marked the queen.

Kitta

**Calum** · 29-10-2012, 03:54 PM

Queen Mating Problems
I thought it was going to be queen memorial play - oh the dissapointment...

**Poly Hive** · 29-10-2012, 09:10 PM

A certain person has a pretty large bee in the blefery regarding queen issues. However moving on. When I was queen rearing on a large scale, as in over 50 a year, I sprayed my bricks with paint. Red yellow and blue. Red was grafts in. Yellow was sealed cells, and red was caged virgins.

You can do a lot of breeding with a brick....

PH