Keeping Hive Records

To understand what's happening with your hives, it's important to keep historical records. These don't have to be complicated or exhaustive, but should capture the important aspects of how your hives are performing. Typically, these are kept under the hive roof and filled in on each visit, but they can be kept in a separate folder to allow you to examine them away from the apiary. And, of course, they can be kept electronically, although be aware that you will almost certainly forget some details if you don't record them while you are at the hive.

If you plan on taking the FIBKA Intermediate Apiary Practical exam, one of the requirements is that you can show hive records, so doing this is essential if you plan on taking this exam. Note that there is no specific format required for these, as long as the records show the work the beekeeper has done over the season and how the colonies have developed.

What you really want to follow is Ted Hooper's five questions (explained in detail by Dave Cushman):
  • R - Room: Does the queen have enough room to lay?  Do the workers have enough room to store nectar and pollen?
  • E - Eggs: Is the queen present and laying? Are there eggs and/or have you seen the queen?
  • D - Development: Is the colony building up as expected? Are there queen cells?
  • D - Disease: Are the bees healthy? Do they have noticeable mite loads? Any sign of foul brood, chalk brood, DWV, etc.?
  • S - Stores: Does the colony have enough stores until the next inspection?
The other aspects that are good to track are the attributes of the queen. These were defined by the Galtee Bee Breeding Group as an aid to queen evaluation. These traits - docility, steadiness, brood pattern, pollen storage and comb building - are given a rating from 1 (worst) to 5 (best), and this allows you to build up a picture of how good the queen is. 

There are many designs for record cards available and some links are added below. Here's one that allows you to track both REDDS and the queen's attributes:
This is the template in multiple formats:
colonyassessment-202104.xlsx
File Size: 70 kb
File Type: xlsx
Download File
hiverecordcard.pdf
File Size: 98 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File
You can either print the document or update the spreadsheet. Alternatively, you could keep the spreadsheet in the cloud, e.g. Microsoft OneDrive or Google Docs, and you can update it at the hive from your mobile phone.

Note that this new version of the spreadsheet has a few changes:
  • Each hive still has its own sheet, but the queen now has a separate ID. 
  • The queen selection automatically ranks the queens in order of breeding quality.
Below is a selection of links to external sites which also have hive record templates you can use, and there are many more you can find around the web. However, the one above is the only one to explicitly refer to Ted Hooper's REDDS questions.