Hive inspection sheet: what to record, and a sheet to print

A hive inspection sheet is only useful if next month's you can read it: which hive, what you saw, what you did not look at, and what to do on the next visit. Below is a one-page sheet to print, followed by what each field is for.

I develop Crownboard, an iPhone app for hive records, and the later sections compare paper with the app. The sheet and the guide work without it. Nothing here is beekeeping or treatment advice.

What each field is for

Which hive, and when

Name the apiary and the hive the same way every time. "Hive 3, back fence" survives a season; "the strong one" does not. A date is the one field every record needs: a visit with only a date still shows that you were there.

Conditions

Temperature, wind and whether there was a flow on explain why the bees behaved as they did. A defensive colony on a cold, windy afternoon is not the same finding as a defensive colony on a warm, still one.

Queen, eggs, brood and queen cells

These are the signs people look for to learn whether a colony has a laying queen. The sheet gives each one three answers on purpose. "Seen" and "none seen" are findings. "Did not look" is a different thing, and a plain blank box cannot show it: a blank could mean you checked and found nothing or that you never got to it. If you did not find the queen, "not seen" is true; it is not the same as "queenless".

Temperament and strength

Use a short scale that you apply the same way each time, such as the four steps on the sheet. The words matter less than keeping them consistent so that changes between visits stand out.

Frames

Counting frames of bees, brood and stores gives you a number you can compare in a month. A one-page form on the Alan and Anna beekeeping blog lays out a frame-by-frame grid for a brood box, with rows for eggs, larvae, sealed brood, drone brood, pollen, honey and queen cells; you can find that form as a PDF if you want a grid rather than a list.

Mite count

Record how the count was taken, how many mites you counted and the sample it came from: bees in the jar for a wash or sugar roll, days in the hive for a sticky board. Without the sample, a count cannot be compared with last time's. The varroa count calculator turns each into mites per 100 bees or mites per day, and the University of Florida extension publication How to Quantify Varroa destructor in Honey Bee Colonies explains the methods in detail. What a count means for your colony depends on the season and your region, so ask your local inspector or association.

Work done, and next visit

"Added a super", "swapped two frames of brood", "fed 1:1 syrup" and "treatment applied, product and date" are easy to forget by next week and hard to reconstruct. The last row is for your future self: what to check, what to bring, and what you were unsure about. A hive record that answers "what did I plan to do next?" saves the first ten minutes of the next visit.

Photographs

A photograph of a frame is a better note than a paragraph, but only if you can find it afterwards. Name the photo's hive and date in the sheet, or keep the photo with the visit that it belongs to.

Paper or phone?

Paper works. It does not need a signal, a battery or clean hands, and a sheet clipped inside the lid is hard to beat. It is slower to search, and a sheet that is wet, sticky or lost takes its history with it.

Crownboard is for keepers who would rather keep this kind of record on an iPhone. In an inspection, the queen, eggs, open brood, capped brood and queen cells each start at "Didn't look" and change only when you tap them. Temperament and strength are pick lists, frames and equipment are counters, and the work done is a list of standard actions plus a free-text field, so little has to be typed. A mite count is stored with its method and sample and shown per 100 bees or per day. Photographs are copied into the app's own store, and a visit or a colony's history can be shared or printed as a PDF. If you pass a colony to another keeper, there is also a free printable handover sheet that needs no app.

Crownboard is free to download for iPhone with iOS 18 or later, in English. Two active hives include every feature; one optional purchase, paid once and never renewed, removes the two-hive limit. There is no account to create. It does not give treatment advice, mite thresholds or a seasonal calendar.