Keep an eye on the weather at the apiary

The weather data for your apiary, for planning your work and as a record of the conditions you worked in. Weather data is available during the trial period and with a package.

As soon as iBeekeeper knows your apiary, the app shows you the weather forecast for the next seven days. In addition, the weather is recorded with your inspections.

Why the weather belongs with the inspection

Hardly any beekeeping job is independent of the weather, and most misjudgements happen because you forget that afterwards.

• Opening: Below ten degrees and in wind, the brood chills. In spring that is the difference between an inspection and real damage.
• Treating: Formic acid evaporates depending on the temperature. The same amount barely works at 15 degrees and is too strong at 30 degrees; if you want to judge the result, you need to know how warm it was.
• Swarming: After a cool spell followed by the start of the forage, colonies readily tip into swarming mode. If you know the weather is about to change, you plan your checks accordingly.
• Harvesting: In damp weather the bees dry the honey more slowly. That explains many a water content that would otherwise remain a mystery.

Looking back is worth more than the forecast

The forecast helps with planning the week. The real benefit shows later: by autumn you no longer know whether it was thirty degrees or eighteen on that day in July when the treatment didn’t work.

Because the weather is recorded automatically with the inspection, it is right there when you look things up, without you having had to think about it.

No substitute for looking outside

A forecast is still a forecast, and the apiary often has a different microclimate from the place the weather data comes from. The data is a planning aid and a memory; the decision whether to open up today is still yours.