I use small plastic tags that I get from www.ULINE.com part number S-5544Y. I think the "Y" at the end of the part number is for yellow tags. I use small wood screws to attach the yellow tag to the bottom brood box of each hive.
For example my home yard I tag as.....H01.....H02 and so on. When I split one of those hive I re-label the split as SPH01-01. SP=split......H=Home.......01=parent hive......second 01=number of new split.
I hope I explanded that well enough for u to understand. I keep track of all hive numbers in a note book for now but I want to move to computer.
Toby
Saginaw MI
J&T Beekeepers

 

My plan for record keeping is to number the bottom boards. The queen can stay with the bottom board when making splits.

 

Going to get a lot of different answers on this one. I cut pieces of political signs using magic marker numbers 1,2,3,4,5. thumb tacked to the cover. When I make a split the queen goes in a 5-frame nuke with sealed brood honey, pollen and frame of empty cells for her to lay in. The parent hive gets to make the queen. The parent hive is #1, the split is #1A, if I split a split it becomes #1A1,#1A2 etc. The original queen stays in the first split. I don’t keep track of boxes. If the parent hive makes a new queen and I split again it becomes #1B and the parent hive gets to make another queen.

 

I use hive tracks, hivetracks.com and since each hive is numerical I use numerical on my hives also. Makes life easy. I also write a new inspection report as soon as I finish my inspections. But with 15 hives it is getting harder to remember which was which so I also use a Dadant inspection sheet for each hive now.

psisk

 

I am sure there are reasons for keeping such detail track of every individual piece of equipment, but I don't do any of this at all. I have about 500 hives.

Why do y'all think this is necassary? Not saying it isn't. Just don't know why. Thanks.

 

I think it's more a type A personality thing. You and I are not type A's.

 

Heh, heh. Anything but. Competitors for the Lazy Beekeeper Award.

I'd still like to know.

 

Competitors for the Lazy Beekeeper Award.

I'd beat you for that, but it sounds like too much work.

 

I have seven hives and can't remember who did what when or how it was. I planned to take a note book with me to the hives, forgot that too. UGH!!!
:scratch:

 

I put a piece of blue painters take on the hive, & write my notes on the tape with a sharpy.
Easy to remove, & add new tape.

 

Hi,

I'm a computer programmer by day and have just began beekeeping as a hobby.
I was sitting at work the other day, contemplating how i would approach writing a new application for beekeepers to monitor varying aspects of beekeeping.
We have been doing feasibility studies on RFID tags; turns out around 5c a tag. Maybe this technology coupled with an hand held device could revolutionize the bee industry.
every aspect of a single frame could be recorded against a hive. images could be logged against a frame for identifying disease.
weighing before and after extraction. automatic GPS locating of hives, the sky is the limit.

Gary

 

I just make notes with a sharpy. It wears off in about a year and that is long enough for what I track. I make a queen or two from every hive that is good enough to not requeen. I keep different breeds in different yards until they get muddied up open mating and then it just doesn't matter. The truely exceptional ones I keep tracking by the original number with a suffix added for splits. You can make it as complicated as you want. Maybe you will be the next Taylor or Morse.

 

Hi,

Oh and by the way, I would entertain any suggestion put forward by members regarding what type of information would be beneficial collecting. the following would be of value to users.

1) Images of any particular frame, hive

2) notes about any frame or hive.
3) weight of a frame
4) geographic location
5) Link to One common location ie USDA) for real time pest and disease management.

Gary

 

I started out with two hives. I purchased enough boxes for a third hive. I put large (3") numbers on my brood boxes and letters on my supers. So my note taking started out as "Hive 1. and Hive 2.". Now I have added second deeps so my note taking reads "Hive 1.5. and Hive 2.4." When I add honey supers it reads "Hive 1.5.A. and Hive 2.4.B." ..... and so on my next hive will be "Hive 3.6." Make sense? I did it that way so as I build up the number of hives there is an endless combination of numbers and yet very specific for note taking. I keep all notes in a journal.

 

I used a system ten years ago with each hive having a letter the each hive body had that letter with a number such as hive A would have two hive bodies A1 and A2 since honey suppers changed from year to year I labeled them S1, S2, S3 etc... and noted which one went on which hive. Took notes in a notebook most of the time worked okay for just the few hives i had... After starting back this year I put some thought in to this and kept the system but expaned numbering the frames in each hive (sounds like to much info I know but) I have been takeing notes on the smart phone while working the hive and takeing pictures from a picture I can tell which frame was in what hive or hive body. Then when i get around to uploading pics into a file and type a few notes with them it is a much cooler journal and might lend itself to some other projects in a few years when i have amassed a picture journal archieve.

In all fairness this is a brand new project and so far the honey on the smart phone is not bad on a touch screen if it had buttons that would be a problem.

Daniel

Maryville, Tn.

 

I guess i could circumvent that problem by using voice recognition and voice notes, like the new IPhone

And i do apologize for Hijacking a thread.