Hive Record Card
Lexikon
The hive record card is the record kept for an individual bee colony.
The hive record card is the record kept for an individual bee colony. It documents the colony's condition and observations as well as all beekeeping work carried out over the course of the year. Its value lies in comparison: anyone who keeps notes over several years can see which colonies develop well, which queen proves herself, and when which task is due at their own site. Without records, one relies on memory, and with several colonies that quickly becomes unreliable.
Beyond pure management, there is also a statutory documentation requirement. Bees are animals kept for food production, so keepers must keep a record of the medicinal products applied, including those available without prescription. The legal basis is Article 108 of Regulation (EU) 2019/6 as well as the German Regulation on the Application and Documentation of Veterinary Medicinal Products by Animal Keepers (Tierhalter-Arzneimittelanwendungs- und Nachweisverordnung). This colony register requires, among other things, the date of first administration, the name and quantity of the medicinal product, the name and address of the supplier, proof of purchase, the identity of the animal, i.e. the number of the colony, the name of the veterinarian where applicable, the withdrawal period even where it is zero, and the duration of treatment. Records and proof of purchase must be kept for five years and produced to the authority on request. Electronic record-keeping is permitted as long as the data remain readable and unalterable at all times.
In practice this affects almost every beekeeper, because under Section 15 of the Bee Disease Ordinance, treatment against varroosis is required every year. This regularly results in an application that must be documented. Official forms are tailored exactly to this and provide columns for each colony and each site.
Two points are often confused. First, the hive record card is not automatically a colony register: it can cover the mandatory information, but only if it really contains all the required fields. Second, the details belong in the record promptly, not reconstructed from memory at the end of the year.