"A-Z" INDEX & SEARCH

Record Keeping In Honey Bee Husbandry

Keeping records of behavioural characteristics and productivity of colonies of honey bees to enable selection for future breeding of better bees and inventory of hive parts to enable tracking of disease should it occur.

The keeping of hive records is much more important than most people give it credit for. I personally have recognised the need for such records, but I have tried several systems and these have all fallen out of use leaving fragmentary data that is of little sensible use. There are two other methods that I have tried.

Micheál Mac Giolla Coda's ten column notebook method

Using a hand held Psion computer for inventory of all beekeeping kit

I had intended to combine the two methods by using a spreadsheet on my Psion 5, but that is now unlikely to happen.

Record Cards are dealt with on the Assessment Criteria (Record Cards) page.

Hive Inventory serves a different purpose... It both helps to record a value for depreciating capital items and also helps control outbreaks of disease, by being able to track the movement of equipment between apiaries. Regular patterns of movement can be ascertained and depots of the kit required can be planned for future years.

Written... Date Unknown, Revised... 06 December 2001, Upgraded... 18 August 2006,