Record Keeping Software

[GingerNut]

Hi All,

Has anyone got any good record keeping software for bee keeping please?

Yours Roy

 

[subbuteo]

There are a few programmes listed on here.

http://www.beehoo.com/f_the.php?theme=Software-

 

[GingerNut]

Thanx

Yours Roy

 

[Heather]

I made my own on Excell. Lots of columns
Headings:-
Date, weather,eggs. brood, stores, room, queen, q cells,varroa treat, varroa drop,health, behaviour,Notes.
I keep a page per hive and each in a plastic sleeve in a file - sorted.

 

[Nellie]

I have a rough and ready Access Database in the process of being tweaked up into something more useable at the moment.

I'm happy with the table structure, it just needs some prettier forms.

Mine records Hives, Apiaries, queens, inspections and records sub actions against each inspection.

 

[GingerNut]

I have a rough and ready Access Database in the process of being tweaked up into something more useable at the moment.

I'm happy with the table structure, it just needs some prettier forms.

Mine records Hives, Apiaries, queens, inspections and records sub actions against each inspection.

Now that's what I'm looking for

Can I help?

Yours Roy

 

[Nellie]

I need to spend a bit of time sorting the forms out to at least make it useable. I'd certainly be happy to pass it out for some feedback once i hit that stage.
it's in Access 2007 at the moment and my biggest problem is trying to remember the VBA now I've moved to .Net coding against SQL server in my everyday work.

Functionally it's not rocket science, it allows you to:
Create/edit Apiary sites
Allocate Hives to Apiary, each with a unique ID naturally
Allocate a type to a hive (national, langstroth, whatever you want to add to that)
Assign a Queen(s) to a Hive with separate information such as mark, year, other comments against the Queen.
Assign Inspections to a Hive.
Assign (and configure) actions to an Inspection

The inspection record has the standard information:
Y/N for Queen seen
temprament (also configurable to whatever degree you like, I have nasty, grumpy, Ok, gentle at the moment)
number of drawn frames
Stores
Y/N for Eggs, larvae, capped brood.
A freetext comments field.

Actions can then be configured and multiple actions assigned to each Inspection, at the moment I have:
Icing Sugar Dust
Apiguard Treatment
Feed added
Super Added
Super Removed

as example actions. As many or as few of these as you like can be assigned to an inspection.

Actually it possibly needs a tweak, if you move a hive from one apiary to another, you'd lose the history that it used to reside on a previous apiary.

 

[DulwichGnome]

I have a rough and ready Access Database in the process of being tweaked up into something more useable at the moment.

I'm happy with the table structure, it just needs some prettier forms.

Mine records Hives, Apiaries, queens, inspections and records sub actions against each inspection.

I've been trying to get round to writing something for my plam pilot using HanDBase, http://www.ddhsoftware.com/handbase.html, but not had much luck yet. It can import tables from Access, with or without data, so it would be great if you wanted to share the structure Nellie and I'll post back a front end to use on the Palm.

Mike.

 

[GingerNut]

I need to spend a bit of time sorting the forms out to at least make it useable. I'd certainly be happy to pass it out for some feedback once i hit that stage.
it's in Access 2007 at the moment and my biggest problem is trying to remember the VBA now I've moved to .Net coding against SQL server in my everyday work.

Functionally it's not rocket science, it allows you to:
Create/edit Apiary sites
Allocate Hives to Apiary, each with a unique ID naturally
Allocate a type to a hive (national, langstroth, whatever you want to add to that)
Assign a Queen(s) to a Hive with separate information such as mark, year, other comments against the Queen.
Assign Inspections to a Hive.
Assign (and configure) actions to an Inspection

The inspection record has the standard information:
Y/N for Queen seen
temprament (also configurable to whatever degree you like, I have nasty, grumpy, Ok, gentle at the moment)
number of drawn frames
Stores
Y/N for Eggs, larvae, capped brood.
A freetext comments field.

Actions can then be configured and multiple actions assigned to each Inspection, at the moment I have:
Icing Sugar Dust
Apiguard Treatment
Feed added
Super Added
Super Removed

as example actions. As many or as few of these as you like can be assigned to an inspection.

Actually it possibly needs a tweak, if you move a hive from one apiary to another, you'd lose the history that it used to reside on a previous apiary.

Sounds good

One thing I wanted in actions - super order and maniputations so I have a record of where they have been?

Perhaps with someone elses interest it might spur you on to finish it

I'm happy to act as a beta tester for you - roy at jast dot co dot uk

Yours Roy

 

[DulwichGnome]

Sounds good

One thing I wanted in actions - super order and maniputations so I have a record of where they have been?

Perhaps with someone elses interest it might spur you on to finish it

I'm happy to act as a beta tester for you - roy at jast dot co dot uk

Yours Roy

Hi Roy, I have been thinking about this too. One solution might be to prefix the ID for each piece of equipment with a code;
Site = St
Location on site = Lo
Stand =Sd
Floor =Fl
Broad Box = Bb
Crown Board = Cb
Roof = Rf
Then you can quantify any hive, starting from the ground up, eg St01,Lo03,Sd09,Fl05,Bb90,Cb87,Rf10.
If you added the Queen, Qu, then it would become
St01,Lo03,Qu06,Sd009,Fl05,Bb90,Cb87,Rf10.
If you put in a Jenter Kit, Jk, in the third frame of the Broad Box then it would become
St01,Lo03,Qu06,Sd009,Fl05,Bb90,3Jk004,Cb87,Rf10.
By having a table for your equipment and a table for equipment history, just recording when a bit of kit is moved and to where and when, it would be possible to filter by last time/date and 'see' where all your equipment is. If you filter with Site/Location you will see all the equipment that has been there.
Simples
Now to get it to work.

Mike.

 

[GingerNut]

Hi Roy, I have been thinking about this too. One solution might be to prefix the ID for each piece of equipment with a code;
Site = St
Location on site = Lo
Stand =Sd
Floor =Fl
Broad Box = Bb
Crown Board = Cb
Roof = Rf
Then you can quantify any hive, starting from the ground up, eg St01,Lo03,Sd09,Fl05,Bb90,Cb87,Rf10.
If you added the Queen, Qu, then it would become
St01,Lo03,Qu06,Sd009,Fl05,Bb90,Cb87,Rf10.
If you put in a Jenter Kit, Jk, in the third frame of the Broad Box then it would become
St01,Lo03,Qu06,Sd009,Fl05,Bb90,3Jk004,Cb87,Rf10.
By having a table for your equipment and a table for equipment history, just recording when a bit of kit is moved and to where and when, it would be possible to filter by last time/date and 'see' where all your equipment is. If you filter with Site/Location you will see all the equipment that has been there.
Simples
Now to get it to work.

Mike.

Hi Mike,

I'm sure Nellie will sort it all out

Yours Roy

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Whats wrong with a brick?

 

[Hombre]

An observation only: As the number of apiaries and hives begin to scale, the problem that is likely to surface is basic data capture when working almost from dawn to dusk trying to overcome equipment shortages revealed by early swarming etc etc.

I wish you all well with your database implimentations, indeed it is a very interesting area that is likely to throw up more than a few curved balls omitted in the original designs as the season progresses.

I believe that one of our senior contributers has mentioned using a wireless mike or some such for data-capture. Speak and record with VOX controlling the recorder in the vehicle, away from the stickiness of the comb. or was it a digital speech recorder? Could it be one of PH, JB or HM. I seem to recollect an oil industry connections at the time. On a hot sweaty, long and busy day memory alone isn't going to populate your database accurately.

Meanwhile, I'll return to woodwork 101 and see if I can't make my cubes slightly squarer with the correct clearances where they should be.

Good luck. In the fullness of time, I would be interested in the data structures and relationships employed. At the moment it's well off the edge of my project radar, you will be more than happy to hear

 

[Nellie]

At the moment there are unique ids for:
Apiary
Queen
Hive Type (National etc)
Hive
Inspection
Inspection Action
Action types

In a bog standard Relational Database format.

It would not be too much trouble to create to modify the design to be able to uniquely identify each piece of equipment that comprises a Hive but without overcomplicating, do you really care that QX01 was on HIVE01 but is now on HIVE02?

There's a saying in DB design "Normalise 'till it hurts, denormalise until it works"

I can possibly see the value of uniquely identifying Supers although you can already work out easily enough how many are on a hive through a simple query of the Inspection Actions, of course assuming that kept an accurate record.

I seem to recollect an oil industry connections at the time. On a hot sweaty, long and busy day memory alone isn't going to populate your database accurately.

There's a lot of value in a markI pencil and paper. I was looking at Iphone applets for data capture, but I don't really care if I splodge a bit of honey on a piece of paper

I use the standard [strikethrough]IIII[/strikethrough] notation as I inspect to count brood/stores frames at the moment.

I'll be totally honest, I'd designed it for me working at the small end of the beekeeping scale with a couple of hives and not too much difficulty remembering that out of the 7 supers I own x are currently on a hive. That of course might change in the fullness of time, but if it takes you three hours to populate the database with the basic information that you need to start filling out inspections information is it just going to be a foible that you end up not using because it's easier just to slap the details in Excel?

 

[Hombre]

Jim, would that be the Object Oriented brick language version then?

We moved to Crayon+ as our brick language developed week by week and occasionally the exact meaning became unclear. Did two bricks really have a special meaning other than *spare brick here*?

 

[Nellie]

Hi Roy, I have been thinking about this too. One solution might be to prefix the ID for each piece of equipment with a code;
Site = St
Location on site = Lo
Stand =Sd
Floor =Fl
Broad Box = Bb
Crown Board = Cb
Roof = Rf
Then you can quantify any hive, starting from the ground up, eg St01,Lo03,Sd09,Fl05,Bb90,Cb87,Rf10.
If you added the Queen, Qu, then it would become
St01,Lo03,Qu06,Sd009,Fl05,Bb90,Cb87,Rf10.
If you put in a Jenter Kit, Jk, in the third frame of the Broad Box then it would become
St01,Lo03,Qu06,Sd009,Fl05,Bb90,3Jk004,Cb87,Rf10.
By having a table for your equipment and a table for equipment history, just recording when a bit of kit is moved and to where and when, it would be possible to filter by last time/date and 'see' where all your equipment is. If you filter with Site/Location you will see all the equipment that has been there.
Simples
Now to get it to work.

Mike.

Easily do-able but functionally difficult to constrain some of this within Access. Just off the top of my head you'd need:

tblSite - your apiary
ID, Address etc.

tblPlot - hive plots in your apiary
ID, SiteID

tblHive
ID, plotID, TypeID, notes etc

tlbBroodBoxes
ID, TypeID

tblHiveBroodJunction
ID, hiveID, BroodBoxID

etc etc. It's starts to get complicated and is this overkill for a couple of hives? As a commercial ventures I can see the value in doing it. But you've now got the added complication that you're going to have to mark every piece of kit that you've got so you can match back that QX in your hand to QX00001 in your database.

[edit] The above is wrong-ish, depending on how you want to do it, you'd need a junction in your archive information at least as one Hive can have many Brood Boxes, one Brood Box could be used on many hives.

 

[Nellie]

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that uniquely quantifying some elements of the hive parts is overkill and overly complicates matters.

Hive 0001 (or however you want to refer to it) must consist of at least
a Brood box
a Floor
A Roof
A stand
(a bunch of frames if you really want to get anal about cataloguing your kit).

All of those are bascially going to be permanent for the life of Hive 0001.

I can see some value in knowing that Super0001 was used on Hive0001 possibly as a brood box or a honey super last year. But do I learn anymore than just having a "config" table that says I have 7 supers and therefor you can't add more than seven supers to your inspection actions without having removed one first? ie you can't place more equipment on your hives than you claim you own to begin with?

I can see some value in knowing that you've got spare brood boxes that don't form part of Hive0001 and that it was was added to Hive0001 to make it double brood, for example. But at the point you make it the main brood box on Hive0002 it's no longer spare kit anyway.

 

[GingerNut]

I agree

All I want to be able to do is

eg.
If I move super 3 from position 3 in hive 1 to position 6 and all the others move as well. I just want to be able to track that, so I know where to put each super next time I want to change positions.

Yours Roy

 

[DulwichGnome]

Whats wrong with a brick?

Hi Jim, I was not trying to teach any one how to suck eggs and I do not want to chew on any bricks!*http://www.scientificblogging.com/chatter_box/blog/chewing_brick*
Just showing that there might be a short hand way of writing down what you see in front of you in a way that can be reconstructed to give meaningful data, but if you don't need/want the data there's no need to do it.
Simples.

Mike.

 

[BKF Admin]

Whats wrong with writing a database in "MYSQL" ?
ok I admit its the only database language I can write.

Bcrazy has a very nice programe already he uses.

I have a screenshot on my hardrive,let me go find it.