Beetight/Beetight

Hi, I'm Matt and I made Beetight. I am a new beekeeper (just starting my second season). I have two colonies, which I keep in my garden in Cornwall, in the south-west of England. I wrote this because there didn't seem to be any decent bee record keeping software out there and I find it really hard to keep track of paper records, even with my two hives. As my day job is developing web applications I thought I'd try and make a simple site to manage records of inspections and so on.

So what does it do?

I set out to replace the paper or spreadsheet-based records that most beekeepers seem to use, so its first job is to handle records of inspections. I spent some time looking at examples of record sheets and tried to take the best of them. To that end, it records laying pattern and temperament on a six-point scale. You can also say whether you have seen the queen, or eggs. There is space to record any queen cells spotted, or whether there are excessive drone cells. You can record varroa drop counts, as well as any treatments that you may have given. You can keep track of when and how much you have fed them and lots of other stuff. I keep adding new features because everyone asks me for them!

And what about the extra features?

Beetight is about more than records of inspections. You can track any honey that you take, including generating batch codes as required by law in many countries. If appropriate you can also record the primary nectar sources.

You can keep track of details of the colonies as well, including records of the queen and colony sources. It supports splitting and uniting colonies, as well as records of requeening.

The apiary features are particularly useful if you have hives at several sites. You can easily see which hives are where, and the dates of inspections. If you record the location, it will even show the current weather conditions and forecast for each site. You can see all of your apiaries on a map and click on them to get information.

Can I use this when I'm out in the field?

If you have a smartphone, then yes! If you have an iPhone, Android or other recent smart phone, you can use the Beetight mobile web app. You can record your inspections right from your cellphone. The mobile-optimised site makes it really quick and easy to enter the details. If you use the printable hive labels, you can read the barcodes with your phone's camera, instantly grabbing the details of that hive. It's a web app, so you don't need to install anything: just go to beetight.com on your phone's browser and it will detect that you're using a smartphone.

Beekeeping software and online hive records

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