hive naming/numbering convention

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Give them girls names... like hurricanes!

Hurricanes are named as the person who first noticed the weather pattern developing, I believe.

A list of hurricane names are drawn up for the year before they even form. As this years hurricane season has started, the names for this year are....
Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Michael
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sandy
Tony
Valerie
William.
When they run out of names they then give them a number....
They are already upto Debby as shown here:- https://secure.www.stormpulse.com/products/ and here, http://stormcarib.com/... two sites I use to track the storms....

 

[user 6228]

Thanks Cazza, bignikki and Moggs. Those suggestions all make sense to me - I'm mainly wondering how to keep track of Queens through a number of generations to try to preserve positive genetic characteristics , which everyone seems to think is a good idea, but which I can't figure out how to do simply by numbering hives 1,2,3,4 etc.

the basic objects are
colony
queen
hivecomponent.

a colony has a hive
a colony has optionally a queen.
a hive is a collection of hivecomponents.
a queen has a parent queen

give them all an id and use tables and relations in a relational database e.g ms access or mysql to tie them together

simples

 

[Skyhook]

This is sounding complicated. I've been trying to keep tabs of everything, and had just come to the conclusion to number the hives (ie brood boxes) 1,2,3 etc, and have a sheet per box and then write genealogy, origin etc on the sheet, rather than my current system which hovers somewhere between sheet per box and sheet per colony, and is breaking down after a couple of AS's

I had come to the conclusion that my system needed simplifying, but it sounds as if others have more complicated systems.
.

 

[For want of a better word]

A list of hurricane names are drawn up for the year before they even form. As this years hurricane season has started, the names for this year are....
Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Michael
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sandy
Tony
Valerie
William.
When they run out of names they then give them a number....

Whatever happened to Gale Storm Tempest & Hurricane?
The lovely lady at Buckfast Abbey names her colonies with girls names...
I think I will start giving mine flower names....

​

 

[Moggs]

Skyhook? ?? Are you there?

 

[REDWOOD]

Google earth your apiary zoom in and take a screen shot, print and then tippex a dot on each hive and add a number

 

[For want of a better word]

Google earth your apiary zoom in and take a screen shot, print and then tippex a dot on each hive and add a number

But 7 years ago I only had half a dozen hives and they were not here!
​

 

[REDWOOD]

Fill in the missing hives with a marker

 

[chalkie]

I number my hives 1 2 3 and so on, any splits or swarms from say hive 1 then becomes 1a, if then 1a needs splitting then the new colony becomes 1b and so on, so i know which colonies originated from where.

I print out the numbers and letters then laminate them, cut them to size and pin to the brood boxes.

 

[Skyhook]

Skyhook? ?? Are you there?

I think so- is this a philosophical question?

.

 

[picton farm]

I name the queens accordinng to the lines, or the breeders. for example I have some hivemaker, so his are; P1, P2, P3... etc (his name is peter).
Once these are superceded or when I uase them to produce new queens then the new colonies become P1.1.L12.RW,the second 1 indicates that it is the first queen locally mated from the line P1. So L12 indicates a local mating in 2012, and RW indicating the location of the apiary where it was mated.
I have found that mating at some of my apiaries has much calmer results than at others and so in order to properly asess this i needed to factor localtion into the names of the queens so that I could try to find a pattern.
I also have apiary plans with stand numbers rather than queen lines so that my weekly inspections dont require too much thought. I just have a plan of where the various queens are and update it once a week if I make any changes or have any new matings.
It sounds complicated but I would find remembering hurricane names or suchlike very difficult.
Different systems suit different people/purposes.

 

[alanf]

I'm still working this out. The system depends on the scale, I guess. As a migratory bee farmer production hives are each one of a load; it may be easier to work in batches. Breeding and II is going to need a pretty rigid convention but that's another topic. I did try some normal data analysis but the conclusion for me was that hive is irrelevant unless you are trying to record components such as supers or queen excluders individually. My essentials can be tracked using only the queen (it's her colony) and the stand, which might be empty but provides the static element.

Notes are by queen/colony (a Q- or split uses the former queen). They get names, but only when they are marked and around for a while. Bella (Italian-ish) has two open mated daughters D1 and D2. They are currently in nuc boxes made up from Carrie's colony. She was formerly C1, the film is not irrelevant. If they look good they will get names, maybe after overwintering. Stands and apiary labels are composite, so Home by the Forsythia (HF), Allotment North East corner (ANE); more memorable than numbers. Occasional sketch maps are a reminder of who is where. Nucs and splits are placed in relation to a parent stand (HRb). If notes are chronological, the only essential is changes of stand.

Labelling could use numbers, names (personal, initialised, places, landmarks, botanical, compass or any other theme), letters in one or more alphabets (Greek, phonetic etc). Anything that makes sense to you.

 

[flemage]

i just number the stands, i mean how hard can it be with just a few hives?

This worked well untill i had to to an unplaned AS in the rain.

now as you come into my second site the numbering from the gate way is

7, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8.

I also use beeti*ht which numbers the hives not the stands

need to give this whole area some more thought!

 

[alanf]

I also use beeti*ht which numbers the hives not the stands

Maybe it's just me, but a superficial look at the software I found (beet1ght, h1vetrack and beebase) all appeared rather prescriptive. Most of the requests for development were adding detail such as tracking equipment inventories or inspection options that you might use occasionally but most of the time just lengthen the list of irrelevant boxes to ignore. I'd actually be far more interested in schedules for the time critical stuff like moving queen cells or treatments. And I want to sketch diagrams. Maybe I need to write it.

By the way, by 'stand' I mean the physical space. It doesn't move. Whether what is there is wood, bricks, a pallet or an empty patch is irrelevant.

 

[Moggs]

I think so- is this a philosophical question?

.

Nope. Congrats on your post 2000

 

[Skyhook]

Nope. Congrats on your post 2000

Thank you very much!

My wife always says I talk too much

 

[george]

We have nicknames for each site , Shabby Copse being my favourite , then each hive(6 in each apiary) is colour coded with a drawing pin .

My own hives i just number 1 to 30 and re use when a colony fails . Always make notes as you finish each apiary or each hive if there is a lot going on . Always amazed at how little i did remember if I left it till i got home .
G

 

[Queens59]

The lovely lady at Buckfast Abbey names her colonies with girls names

True - but she started it to wind up Brother Adam!! Even then we forget which is which and what do you call Cherie's nuc? Cherie, Cherie 1 etc???