For all you ‘tech heads’ who are not afraid of the internet and modern technology – here is one for you! This is an application called ‘Beetight’, that can be accessed from your PC and, for the paid version, from Apple or Android Smart Phones or Tablets, and which apparently will keep records of all your inspections, photos of your hives, treatments, diseases, etc. A free service is available for those with up to six hives while the whole package costs $15 just over £9 a year. I succumbed to temptation early in December 2011. I have entered all the hives in so far and plan on using it next year to see how well it works in practice.  It is designed primarily for US users – one of the mandatory inspection points relates to Africanised bees for example.  There are options to include or exclude other questions for example to notes relating to swarm or supercedure cells.

The link to their website if you are interested is https://www.beetight.com/

Paul Eades, Apiary Manager 9/12/2011

Updated and republished by John Dudman, PBKA Webmaster 25/1/2012 who has signed up for the free version.