I wanted to share a little project that I’ve been working on in case it might be helpful to any of you. I wasn’t satisfied with the beekeeping logbooks currently available so I went ahead and designed my own, with special versions made for California beekeepers and Flow Hive beekeepers.
I’ve found logbooks to be a useful aid for keeping track of my colonies’ progress over time, as well as their health, especially when there are several beekeepers involved in caring for an apiary. I spent a lot of time making my logbook as intuitive as possible, as well as creating reference pages with some of the beekeeping information that I find most useful to have on hand.
I’m still waiting for most of the versions and cover designs to go live, but a couple of versions of the logbook are good to go so I wanted to share it here in case any of you might find this useful.
I’m a college student and avid hobby beekeeper and wanted to do something to make beekeeping a little more accessible. Any feedback or questions are of course welcome!
Hi Mateo! Congratulations on your book(s)! I just ordered the one for California beekeepers from Amazon. It’s so cool that you included info about native plants. I can’t wait to see it. We’re just heading into the Jacaranda nectar flow here in San Diego. The Jacaranda flow is just starting. I have sticky blossoms on the bottom of my shoes and am tracking them all over the place. — Claire
I’m located in Australia but I’m so curious to use your logbook as I’m also continuously looking for a more intuitive framework for logging hive info. Would you say that your logbook could be adaptable to a different location/climate?
Thank you! I’ve tried tons of different logbooks and always found them poorly designed and either too broad or requiring answers to prompts that took too long to answer. I wanted to make a printed logbook (I don’t like the idea of having to be on my phone to log information during an inspection), that was thorough but easy enough to be quickly filled out before, during, and after an inspection.
To your question, I made a couple different versions of the logbook, one general version with the logbook pages and general reference pages, a Flow version that includes some Flow hive tips that I’ve found helpful, and a California specific version that includes local beekeeping information.
I hope that the logbook pages themselves are adaptable to any location or climate. Thanks again for your interest!
This link should take you to my profile! Books like this one with the title
“Flow Hive Apiary Journal Beekeeping Log & Colony Tracker” are all meant for Flow hives, although of course most of the inspection checklist is the same as for a regular hive
A couple of people messaged asking to see a preview of my logbook, and after an endless back and forth with Amazon customer service to fix the preview feature it is now working how it should be! I realize I wouldn’t choose a logbook without checking out the pages first so I’m relieved that this is finally working
where can I see it?