Beekeeping Inspection Database.

[Neils]

Put it in here as the topic inevtiably winds its way into why did I choose this method over that one and so on ;D

The Beekeeping what now?
As a sometime Database Developer and stuff I wasn't happy with bits of paper stuck under hive roofs and all that jazz so I've been putting together a Beekeeping Inspection database that I can use to track all the inspections, actions and general observations against my colonies, Trace the lineage of my queens and do other stuff related to my bees. There's a lot more stuff in it, but I'm currently concentrating on the core Colony inspection information as I'm concious that time is ticking on and I'd like to get at least the core inspection information ready for this year's inspections if I can.

What stage is it at now?
Right now I term the current version a "Proof of concept". You can add information to it, but not amend or remove information. The front end is very rough and I'm sure there is stuff in there that could work better and stuff that isn't in there that should be.

Can I have a look at it and tell you what's rubbish about it?
Please do. I'm really keen now for people to start playing with it and telling me what they like about it, what they don't. What information they want to record in it but can't and what they're being asked to record at the moment that they don't want to. I'd like to think it's a great opportunity to help shape a tool I really hope will be useful to beekeepers of all levels whether they've got 1 hive or 100.

What do I need to run the software?
A copy of Windows 2000,XP, Vista or 7 that is fully patched and up to date.

Yeah Yeah, enough text, what does it look like?


click for a full sized image. This shows the summary information of colonies for a given apiary and Queen information, Inspection history, action log and Comment history for the selected Colony.


This is the sample Inspection form used to input an inspection against a colony.

Ok, I'm interested, how do I get to play with it?
Send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you a copy and updates as and when I include new bits to play with. I will say that it is NOT ready for you to start recording your own inspection information as the database is still being tweaked regularly. What I'm interested in is feedback about the information being recorded. What you like, what you don't, what you want to record that isn't included and so on. Currently updates include a new copy of the DB so any information you record now will be overwritten or at best not work correctly with the new application.

Happy to answer any other questions or take on board suggestions if people have any.

[Neils]

As not so subtle hints keep cropping up about this, here's where we are at the moment:

I've just sent out a Proof of Concept Version 6 to them that asked to take a look at it and give feed back. You can currently record the following against:

Apiary

• Name of the apiary
• Number of colonies it can host

That's it. I didn't want to put address info in there, you must know where your apiaries are right? From a practical point of view, if someone runs off with your computer, there isn't a handy DB listing where all your valuable hives are located.

Colony

• A common Name for it (ie what you call it, nuc001 for example)
• What type of hive it is in
• Where it came from (split, swarm, purchased etc)
• when it was established
• Whether you use a dummy board
• Whether it's active (for historic recording)

Inspections

• Date the inspection was carried out
• eggs seen
• larvae seen
• sealed brood
• chalkbrood quantity
• sides of stores
• sides of brood
• sides unused
• sides of foundation
• Temper (1-10)
• Comments

Actions

• Date Action Carried out
• Action Type (IPM, Hive Manipulation, etc)
• Action Code (Drone brood culled, super added etc)
• Comments

Comments
Date comment added
comment text


And then, still related to the colonies, but with their own set of information in their own right.
Queen

• Colony queen belongs to
• Parent Queen (if known)
• Strain of bee
• Approx date queen emerged
• Approx date queen came into lay
• Clipped?
• Marked?
• Mark colour
• Active (for historic reporting)
• Comments

It is also possible to record against colonies and queens why they are no longer active, whether the result of routine action like requeening or the less pleasant loss to disease or other factors.

Full histories of changes against the colonies and queens will be available, so you'd be able to look back through the history and see when you clipped a queen or moved that colony from being in a Nuc into a full size hive and so on.

I've asked my guinea pigs if they think it's covering all the things they'd want to record, if so I need to do one final proof of concept version then I'm going to start trying to move it into a more traditional Beta Version where people can start to record their own information into it.

[Calum]

Hi Nellie,
super looking tool. What about adding :
Docility - are the bees aggressive~ any stings during the inspections?
Steadiness - do the bees rush around the comb when being inspected, or are they calm on the combs?
Brood pattern - is there a good pattern ? Are there many missed cells (a sign of inbreeding)?
Pollen storage - is the colony good at collecting and storing pollen (essential for strong colonies)?
Comb building - speed of drawing comb, quality of cappings?
Non-running A subjective assessment out of 10 of the degree of "running" of the workers over the combs e.g. 10 = No running observed, 3 = severe degree of running.
Non-Jumping A subjective assessment out of 10 of the degree of "jumping". of the workers off the combs or frame tops e.g. 9 = very slight jumpiness, 1 = extremely jumpy.
Non-Following Count the number of bees that "follow" and subtract from 10. The count is made as you walk away from the hive after completing an examination and closing the hive e.g. 0 = 10 followers or more, 7 = 3 followers It is often difficult to tell from which colony the "following" workers have come. Try to leave the examination of a known "follower" colony till last and always start inspecting a different colony each time until followers are found and recorded.
Honey harvested (no of frames)
Varroa fallen count

Sorry some of this is copy pasted from my excel notes on the subject. Hope it helps with ideas - I would not include all of the items!
Calum

[Neils]

Hi Nellie,
super looking tool. What about adding :
Docility - are the bees aggressive~ any stings during the inspections?

Covered by Temper I believe currently a 1-10 scale, take your pick which end you prefer as being nice or nasty.

Steadiness - do the bees rush around the comb when being inspected, or are they calm on the combs?

Could add it, but do you really want to record this information every inspection and actually, how likely is it to change?

Brood pattern - is there a good pattern ? Are there many missed cells (a sign of inbreeding)?

I'd be inclined to leave that as a comment. There's always a compromise between recording too much information and not enough

Pollen storage - is the colony good at collecting and storing pollen (essential for strong colonies)?

covered by sides of stores.

Comb building - speed of drawing comb, quality of cappings?

Can be inferred from the frame analysis and/or commented on. There's no reporting in place at the moment, but it'd be easier to calculate it from the existing information than add yet another tick box to the inspection form.

Non-running A subjective assessment out of 10 of the degree of "running" of the workers over the combs e.g. 10 = No running observed, 3 = severe degree of running.
Non-Jumping A subjective assessment out of 10 of the degree of "jumping". of the workers off the combs or frame tops e.g. 9 = very slight jumpiness, 1 = extremely jumpy.
Non-Following Count the number of bees that "follow" and subtract from 10. The count is made as you walk away from the hive after completing an examination and closing the hive e.g. 0 = 10 followers or more, 7 = 3 followers It is often difficult to tell from which colony the "following" workers have come. Try to leave the examination of a known "follower" colony till last and always start inspecting a different colony each time until followers are found and recorded.

Following isn't in there as a distinct characteristic on the inspection information at the moment, perhaps that one at least should be. The others I'm not sure about, Jumping I'd be inclined to say is covered by the temper slider. Is your average beekeeper going to make a distinction and see that as a separate trait to being bad tempered?

I have to admit that I'm not actually a great fan of 1-10 scales as they leave much open to interpretation. Did your colony really become twice as bad tempered as last week or were you just clumsy and got stung or had an argument with the Mrs so are far less tolerant of other females trying to have a word in your ear?

Honey harvested (no of frames)
Varroa fallen count

Both of those are actions imo and already catered for in the design, Mite count is in place under the IPM heading in Hive actions.

Now ok, here's one for you.

When it comes to recording information about following, should that be going in the inspection reports, which makes it a colony trait, or is it a trait that should be recorded against the queen instead?

[Neils]

Executive decision, I added following as a colony trait in the inspection reports and is currently a simple yes/no answer, I'm unsure how useful making it any more complicated than that is likely to be, there is always the option to add explanation comments in the inspection report.

Trying to implement requeening at the moment which is causing no small degree of headaches as it effectively constitutes the first real logic in the application and has to account for a lot of different factors.

[Neils]

And just because my brain is beginning to shut down, here's another not very pretty picture:



This is the screen used to add a new queen to a colony with absolutely everything enabled, i.e. that's capturing everything against a new queen.

Today's been the first real implementation of any "business logic" into the system and after 14 hours pretty much non stop it still isn't finished!

[edit] Lets try and make this a little less like I'm still writing code:

The standard option is that you requeen your colony with a daughter of your existing queen. Using that option, if the Old queen is still active you are given the choice to move that queen to a brand new colony (slapping her in a Nuc basically) and replacing her with your new queen who will be recorded as a daughter. Alternatively you can just mark the existing queen Inactive and provide a reason (lost to a swarm, standard requeening etc etc). If the existing queen is already marked as Inactive, as long as you requeen the colony within 3 months of her loss you can continue to introduce a new queen as her daughter.

You can also add a new queen as a daughter of a queen from one of your other colonies. If you're replacing an existing queen, the same options as above apply. Your new Queen will now be marked as active in the colony and as a daughter of the queen in your other colony (still with me?)

Your final option is to add a new queen from an external source such as a purchase or Swarm. This Queen will not have any previous lineage entered as she's brand new to your apiary genetics. Again, if you're replacing an existing queen the option to hive her off or just outright replace her is available.

If you've had no active queens in your colonies for more than 3 months they aren't available to select as a parent candidate under any of those options.

3 months is a bit of an arbitrary line in the sand at the moment and I dare say it will change.

Oh, and if anyone was looking at that and thinking bloody hell! that's a lot of information to need to know all at once, here's the basic stuff if you just want to add a new queen but haven't marked her, aren't sure she isn't laying yet and she's either a direct replacement of your existing queen or isn't coming from one of your own colonies:

[gavin]

Hi Folks

Sorry I haven't spent time thinking about this too much Nellie. What you are trying to achieve is what you said, a hive inspection database to record management and colony response and the like.

I think that Calum may have been thinking of a breeding tool, and I don't think that is Nellie's intention. Assessing colonies for traits you like (or dislike) is something that you don't do on a series of visits, perhaps only once or twice. For those selecting their stocks for Amm traits Peter Edward's Stud book is good:

http://www.bibba.com/downloads.php

Peter runs a lot of colonies (>100) and takes his queen raising seriously, focussing on Amm traits as well as gentleness, productivty, and disease resistance.

For me, that selection tool is more use than following the effect of different management decisions. I've been through the phase of trying to record everything about every colony (in a narrative in a bee diary) and as the numbers of colonies have grown (a bit) and time shrinks (that damn internet?!) my passion to record everything has diminished somewhat.

These days I might like to know the provenance of the queen, notes on how the colony is developing in relation to its neighbours, diseases, pests and treatments, and feed given. Beyond that the traits are for selection.

I'm sure that there was more to say but the brain is shutting down ....

G.

[Neils]

I think you've nailed it Gavin.

In some respects, while I've taken feedback and advice on board there is one very important limitation at the moment, my own knowledge and experience as a beekeeper. I looked at DrawWing, for example, and other than not really understanding it, I couldn't see how your average Nellie would put that functionality into use on their 3-4 hive apiary. There's also the small matter that these tools already exist for those that want to use them but I haven't found something like this yet, which is what I want to use.

Other than starting to run out of time, I was also concious that the more complicated it becomes the less people will want to use it, including me. As I'm the one effectively paying for its development at the moment and knowing full well it's never going to earn me a penny, I had to make a decision and crack on developing the system I wanted to use. That being said I've had a lot of invaluable feedback and I think that where it is right now is about where I want it to be for the foreseeable future.

[Neils]

RIght, I'm going to be bold and declare that all the requeening works, if not elegantly, then at least consistently.

I dare say that it's still buggy and possible to do silly things but I think that now pretty much puts it into a final proof of concept. You can now:

Add an apiary
Add a new Colony
add an inspection
Add an action
add a comment to a colony
Requeen a colony, introduce a new queen from an external source, move an existing queen from one colony to another and mark, with a reason, the existing queen Inactive (a polite way of saying dead) with the relative parentage being recorded where applicable.

I'm taking the drying up of feedback to mean that people have either lost interest in it or think it's doing everything fine but I think I'm just about ready to declare myself happy with the Table structure and start to add all the stuff to the DB I'd been holding off doing until now (like the tables to record change histories to the queens and colonies.) and start to get cracking on figuring out the various process and procedures I need to start coding.

[POPZ]

Neil,. All this blethering is in danger of getting your proverbial nickers in a twist. I think, for what it is worth, that you have done a fantastic job. You will never satisfy the demands of this beekeeping lot - no way. They can't even agree on some of the most simple parts of beekeeping! and I guess that is part of what makes it so interesting.

As I said right at the outset, keep it simple stupid, make sure it works and let it grow organically as proven demand dictates.

Be brave - release your baby and well done.
Richard