Crownboard Hive Log

Record every hive inspection with your gloves on. Queen, eggs and brood are tapped, frames are counted by holding a button, and nothing has to be typed, so what you saw under the crown board is written down before the lid goes back on. Queen, eggs, open brood, capped brood and queen cells are each seen, not seen, or not looked for — and each of them begins at not looked for. A colony is never written down as short of a queen because you ran out of time to find her. Temperament and strength are five buttons each, from not rated up. The frames you actually pulled are counted on their own rows — brood, capped honey, pollen, uncapped stores, drawn empty, foundation, and the frames covered in bees — and holding the plus keeps counting, so nine frames of brood is one press rather than nine taps with a gloved thumb. Twenty-six things you might have done, from feeding to taking a super off to…