Beekeeping is an agricultural discipline where the livestock is measured in the millions and the assets are scattered across hundreds of square miles. A commercial apiarist who relies on memory to track which yard needs supering or which pallet has a "dead-out" is managing a hobby, not a business. In the high-stakes world of pollination contracts and honey production, data is the only way to manage the chaos of the swarm.

The Philosophy of Hive Management

The "End of Month September Bees" template is designed for the commercial beekeeper who manages multiple yards across different Counties. It moves your apiary records from hive-top scribbles to a structured digital inventory. By standardizing the capture of Location and Date Inspected, the system creates a historical record of your operation's health. It acknowledges that a successful season is built on the rigorous tracking of assets—from Pallets to Skips—ensuring that no equipment is lost in the field.

The Blueprint: Colony and Equipment Architecture

The structure of this library is built to handle the physical reality of modern beekeeping.

  • Configuration Triage: Dedicated fields for 8-Frame Hives and 10-Frame Hives allow you to track your equipment standardization. Knowing exactly how many deeps or mediums are deployed in a specific yard is essential for planning your next equipment run.
  • Health Monitoring: The Dead field is the most critical metric for long-term viability. Tracking colony losses by location allows you to identify environmental stressors, pesticide exposure, or queen failure rates across your operation.
  • Logistical Security: The Combination field ensures that gate access codes are always available to your crew, preventing lost time at the entrance to a remote yard.

Managing the Yard Visit

You are arriving at a remote yard for a scheduled inspection. You check your Memento library and see that this location has 24 10-Frame Hives on 6 Pallets. You perform your inspection and note a few weak colonies. You update the Action Taken field to "Re-queened 2, Added Supers to 10." You snap a Photo of the yard conditions and tag the GPS location. This data is instantly available to your partners, ensuring that the next team to visit knows exactly what was done and what needs to be monitored.

Power Feature: Barcode Asset Tracking

By utilize Memento’s integrated Barcode scanner, you can tag each pallet or individual hive body. This allows for high-speed inventory auditing. Scanning a barcode upon arrival confirms the asset's identity and pulls up its entire history—from installation date to last harvest yield. It turns a physically demanding job into a data-driven science, ensuring that your management decisions are always based on the verified reality of the yard.