Bees and honey

What the app keeps for your bees

You can run the operation without registering hives, count each apiary by its number of hives, or give each hive its own record. An apiary counted by quantity keeps a running total that you update with purchases, splits recorded as births, losses, sales and adjustments, and its hives do not count toward the free plan’s limit of 50. If you register a hive, the app gives it a number (API-01, API-02…) and you can group the hives by apiary, the same way you visit them in the field; each registered hive counts toward the limit of 50. Honey, costs and sales go to the whole operation, to one hive or to one apiary, as you choose.

• Honey in kilos. The quick log takes the kilos from each harvest in a few seconds, for the whole operation or for the apiary it came from. In Products you see today’s total and the last 7 days; monthly and 3-month totals are on the Pro plan.
• Costs. Sugar for feeding, wax foundation, boxes, frames, jars, treatments and transport are logged with a category and a description, and assigned to the whole operation or to an apiary. Each month you see what comes in, what goes out and the trend over the last six months.
• Sales. Every honey sale is recorded as income, for the operation or for an apiary, so you know how much the honey earns over the season.
• Reminders. Hive inspections, treatments, feeding during the dearth or the harvest, each with its date, a note and a notification on your phone. They can repeat every so many days, weeks or months: when you mark one done, the app sets the next.

On the free plan you have up to 50 animals, 2 groups and 10 reminders, and assigning honey and money to an apiary is free. The Pro plan has no limit on animals or groups and shows each apiary’s balance.

Comparing one apiary with another

The harvest varies a lot from one site to another and from one year to the next, depending on the bloom and the weather. If each apiary is a group and you assign its honey, costs and sales to it, on the Pro plan each apiary’s record shows its income, expenses and balance, and the honey of the last 30 days. When you close the season you have the figure for deciding whether to move boxes or leave a site.

Reminders for the whole season

Work in the apiary runs by the calendar: inspecting the hives every so often, applying and removing treatments on time, feeding when there is no bloom and harvesting when the honey is capped. Each task is saved as a reminder with its date, and the notification reaches your phone the day before. A task that comes back, such as the inspection every few weeks, can repeat: when you mark it done, the app sets the next one. That way it does not depend on remembering or on a calendar on the shed wall.