Databases and Beekeeping
Bee Culture (March 2004), Vol. 132 (3): 17-19
By
Malcolm T. Sanford
What is a database? It is nothing more than a collection of
information or “data” that can be found at a certain place. The first database in any organism is
probably a nerve cell or neuron; a collection of them is a ganglion, and a very
large ganglion is a brain. It is the
place organisms use when they need some information collected and interpreted
by specialized organs such as eyes or noses.
Although little has historically been known about how the human brain
gathers and stores information, the advent of the digital computer revolution
is rapidly changing that. Witness
projects like the
With the advent of paper,
there appeared a more permanent place to collect and store data besides the
brain, which is notoriously unreliable (it shuts down on death). An article in the February 2004 Bee Culture by Barbara Blaufuss discusses this use: “In
the beginning I started a notebook. On one page for each hive I wrote details
about the locations and the queens. It was a satisfying ritual to record in it
occasionally. But I never read it. What I really needed was a way to record
what was happening with my hives simply and graphically so I could see at a
glance not just one hive but all the hives and locations. I wanted to paint a
picture on paper of what was happening in the field.” Her ledger born.
Ms. Blaufuss
concludes: “A really obvious reason for keeping some records is responsible
handling of chemicals. I may not always remember when I put the strips in or
how many times I have sprinkled terramycin
or how much Fumidil I have given a hive. Since the
timing varies with each of these treatments, it can be challenging for me to
remember the details with even one hive.”
The same reasoning prompted Mr. Glenn Engel to think about collecting
colony information : “The original idea for this came
from my inability to remember exactly when to remove my mite treatments.”
Rather than paper, Mr. Engel
moved to a newer technology to manage his database, the digital computer. After doing some searching, he saw no
beekeeping applications available on the World Wide Web to do this task, and so
he took on the daunting challenge to put something online, available to all
beekeepers. This became his web site
with the domain name: mybeehives.com.2 Fortunately, Mr. Engel has a
background in programming sites like these.
He is currently building a 72-foot tower with it's
own web page that controls the height of the tower, as well as the direction of
the antenna at the top of the tower.
About his beekeeping database
project, Mr Engel says, “I bought the domain name
this last summer and the idea incubated until November when I started writing
some database and web scripts to get the site up and running. On Dec 2,2003 I made the site active and after one or two emails to
beekeeping lists the users (and hives) started showing up. So far I
haven't really tried to advertise as the site underwent significant changes in
December but I think it's now ready for general use. I think this morning
I told you there were 65 users and 156 hives. Tonight there are 71 users
and 165 hives so use is growing.
“My main goal for the site is
for it to be useful to beekeepers for their records so over time I'll be
enhancing it with various reports and analysis pages including the ability to
send an email reminder to remove miticide 6 weeks
after it goes in. When users register I ask for their postal code with
the future objective of being able to generate reports showing interesting
things like average yield per hive per state. I've leveraged many ideas
from a paper written by the WA State apiarist. (Note: WA no longer has an
official state apiarist due to budget cutbacks, but Jim Bach is still working
for the dept of agriculture in WA).
“I've also tried to capture
data in a way that allows for subsequent analysis by someone (perhaps a
graduate student) if the amount of data in the database becomes statistically
significant. For example, the checkboxes allow users to make notes about
their hives in a way that allows analysis tools to look for
correlation. Another example of interesting questions are what is
the distribution of queen races by geography, do hives that have an entry for 'supercedure cells' subsequently swarm, which queen
breeders have queens that don't tend to swarm, what is an average honey crop
etc. In any case, users’ true identity will never be revealed or released
but the 'raw' data could prove interesting.
Finally, I do not have any plans to start charging users or add annoying
pop-up ads but want to keep it a free and useful resource for beekeepers.”
Visiting the mybeehives.com
site, one immediately sees the possibilities.
Each colony can be seen at a glance.
Information includes hive color, condition of queen and brood, diseases
and treatments used, and other notes.
Colonies can also be summarized.
The site also includes reference materials and a forum to ask questions
and share information with others.
Finally, there is no current limit on number of colonies or users. A most exciting possibility is that many
beekeepers across the nation could use the database to collect data on a
uniform basis for large-scale studies.
Investigators would have at their disposal a huge amount of information
to look at and share with colleagues.
Although perhaps the most
innovative database in terms of sharing information, most web pages are in fact
databases. Two others that come to mind
are beesource.com and the French mega site apiservices.com, both of which I
reviewed in previous articles in this magazine.3
There are databases available
in other areas that concern beekeepers.
Perhaps most important are those of the plants honey bees forage
on. Enter Dr. Zachary Wang at
Other plant databases exist
that are phenomenal, but not necessarily dedicated to beekeeping. For sheer quantity of information, the
National Plants database maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture can’t
be beat.6 There
are a raft of others listed at the about.com site.7
1.
http://neuroscience.ucdavis.edu/hbp/,
accessed January 22, 2004.
2.
http://mybeehives.com, accessed January 22,
2004.
3.
http://www.beeculture.com/beeculture/digital/,
accessed January 23, 2004.
4.
http://plants.bees.net, accessed January 23,
2004.
5.
http://pollinator.com, accessed January 22,
2004.
6.
http://plants.usda.gov/, accessed January
23, 2004
7.
http://biology.about.com/cs/plantdatabases/,
accessed January 23, 2004.