Hive record card online

At each inspection: the date, the hive, whether you saw the queen or eggs, the frames of brood in all stages, any queen cells, the stores and the colony’s temper and health. Add what you did and what to do next time. The NBU asks beekeepers to keep records for each colony and to read them before the next visit.

Brood in all stages: eggs, young larvae, older larvae and sealed brood on the same frames. Seeing BIAS tells you a laying queen was present within the last three days, even if you did not spot her. BIBBA’s record card counts the frames with BIAS, a single side counting as half.

Every seven days through swarming season, roughly late April to July in England, a little later in Scotland and the north. If a colony had no charged queen cells at the last inspection, it is unlikely to swarm before the next. With a clipped queen you can stretch the interval to nine or ten days.

BIBBA’s record card uses a 1 to 5 scale: 5 for very calm bees, 4 for more excitable but not stingy, down to 1 for extremely defensive bees that follow you away from the hive. Score each colony at each inspection, in similar weather where you can, and breed from the calmest.

You can note them here, but the law asks for a separate veterinary medicine record kept for 5 years: purchase, administration, withdrawal period and disposal. Use our veterinary medicine record for that, and keep the mite drop and the treatment date on the hive card so you can judge whether it worked.

Either works if you fill it in every time. Paper cards kept under the roof are always to hand at the hive; an online record is easier to search, filter and back up. This record works on a phone at the apiary, stays on your device, and prints to a tidy card when you want paper.