5. Hives

Each hive record represents one physical colony. Its name, type, color marking, and installation date are set when you create it. Box counts and equipment are tracked separately (see 5.5 Boxes / Equipment Configuration), not as part of the hive record itself.

5.1 Adding a Hive

1. Open an apiary.
2. Tap the + button.
3. Fill in the hive name (e.g. "Hive 1", "Nuc A").
4. Optionally fill in Operational Number (see 5.6 Operational Numbers).
5. Select the hive type: Langstroth, Top Bar, Warre, Flow Hive, National, or Other.
6. Set the color (optional — useful for quick visual identification at the apiary).
7. Enter the installation or establishment date.
8. Tap Save.

A new hive starts with no boxes or equipment recorded. After saving, a "Hive Created" dialog asks whether to set them up now. Choose Set Up Boxes / Equipment to go straight to the hive's Boxes / Equipment Configuration card, or Skip for now to add them later. Either way the hive appears immediately in the apiary's hive list, ready for inspections.

5.2 Hive Detail Screen

Tap a hive card to open its detail screen. This is your main working area for a single colony. It's a single scrolling page of cards, not a set of tabs — in order:

5.3 Editing a Hive

Tap the pencil icon in the top right of the hive detail screen to edit the hive. You can update the name, type, color, and installation date. Box counts and equipment are managed separately through the Boxes / Equipment Configuration card (see 5.5 Boxes / Equipment Configuration), not through this edit screen. The three-dot menu (⋮) gives access to Delete and Mark as Inactive.

These two options behave very differently. Mark as Inactive is reversible: the hive and all its records stay in your account, moved out of the active list, and you can reactivate it any time (see 8.4 Inactive Hives). Delete is permanent and immediate, and does not require marking the hive inactive first. It removes the hive along with its inspections, queen records, notes, harvests, treatments, and equipment records, and cannot be undone.

5.4 Sorting the Hive List

The hive list inside each apiary can be sorted using the sort icon (sort) in the top-right corner of the screen. Tap it to choose a sort order:

The sort is applied in addition to the Active/Inactive/All filter — use both together to quickly find the hive needing attention soonest.

5.5 Boxes / Equipment Configuration

Below the Supers section on the hive detail screen, the "Boxes / Equipment Configuration" card tracks how many boxes are currently on the hive by quantity, with dated history. It has no concept of an individual box's identity. That's what the Supers section above it is for, and it now shows historical records only. Current counts are grouped three ways:

• Role — Brood Box or Super.
• Size — Shallow, Medium, Deep, Other, or Unspecified. Either role can be any size, so a medium brood box and a medium super are counted separately. Unspecified is a real, selectable size for legacy boxes predating size tracking. Use Classify to move a count out of it once you know the true size.
• Frame Capacity — how many frames the box holds (8, 10, and so on). Optional: leave it blank for equipment whose capacity you haven't recorded, and Bee Inspector tracks it as "Unknown frames" until you correct it.

A hive with nothing recorded in any role shows a single "No boxes set up yet" prompt with its own Add Box button, rather than an empty row per role — tap it to record your first box. Once at least one box is recorded, Current Configuration shows a chip per role/size/capacity combination that has a nonzero count, for example "Deep · 10-frame: 2", and three labeled buttons below the card's description handle every change:

• Add — add boxes, or open the same sheet in Remove or Set Total mode to correct the current count directly:
  1. Choose the Box Role, Box Size, and optionally the Frame Capacity.
  2. Choose Add, Remove, or Set Total. Set Total is useful for correcting a count directly — enter the true number and Bee Inspector works out the add/remove for you.
  3. Enter the quantity, set the effective date, and optionally add a reason and notes.
  4. Tap Save.
  When you add a box, brood box or super, the Frame Capacity field pre-fills — first from the hive's own unambiguous capacity if it already has one recorded for that role and size, otherwise from your Default Frame Capacity account setting if you've set one (see Section 15, Account & Settings). Either way it's still fully editable. If the capacity you enter doesn't match anything else already recorded on the hive, a non-blocking "Mixed Frame Capacity" warning asks you to confirm before saving — apiaries with mixed box sizes are expected, not an error.
• Remove — pick an existing box from a list of everything currently recorded on the hive instead of typing its role, size, and capacity. Tapping one opens the same sheet pre-filled to Remove mode for that exact box.
• Classify — move a quantity from one role/size/capacity combination to another without changing the hive's overall total, for example correcting a box that was entered as a Super into a Brood Box, or giving an "Unknown frames" box its real capacity once you know it.

Every change is kept in the Configuration History below the current counts, with its date, quantity, and reason. Equipment moved during a split or combine also shows a "Moved to/from [hive]" note (see 8.1 Splitting a Hive and 8.3 Combining Hives). This card is independent of Harvest — use it any time you add equipment, consolidate boxes, or need to correct a count, whether or not you're recording a harvest at the same time (see 10.3 Removing Boxes When You Harvest).

5.6 Operational Numbers

The Operational Number field on the hive form is optional and separate from the hive's name. Use it for whatever number you already track in the field — on equipment tags, hive stands, or paper records. Leave it blank if you don't use one; nothing else about the hive changes. Available both when adding a new hive and when editing an existing one, so you can go back and number hives you already have.

On the hive list, a numbered hive shows a small read-only "#127" badge next to its name; the hive detail screen shows it in its own read-only Operational Number row. Both make it obvious what Sort by Number (see 5.4 Sorting the Hive List) is actually ordering by. Elsewhere in the app — inspection and treatment forms, split/combine screens, and similar pickers — it still shows combined with the name instead, as "127 · Blue Queen".

If you enter a number another hive in your account already uses — active or inactive — a "Number Already in Use" dialog appears with Cancel or Save Anyway. You can still save: some beekeepers reuse a number on purpose, for example after retiring a hive.

5.7 Adding Multiple Hives at Once

From an apiary's hive list, tap Add Multiple Hives next to the regular Add Hive button. This creates several hives in one pass — useful for a batch of nucs, splits, or packages installed the same day.

1. Set the number of hives to create (up to 100 per batch).
2. Set a starting operational number. Bee Inspector suggests one higher than your current highest number, and you can change it.
3. Optionally set a prefix, suffix, and zero-padding — padding of 5 turns 127 into "00127".
4. Build a name pattern using {number}: "Hive {number}" becomes "Hive 127", "Hive 128", and so on.
5. Set a hive type, color, establishment date, and notes shared by every hive in the batch.
6. Optionally attach a shared equipment template — boxes and frame counts applied to every hive created. Every row, brood box or super, suggests your Default Frame Capacity (Section 15, Account & Settings) if you've set one; still fully editable, and a value you type in always sticks.

Tap Generate & Review to see every planned hive before anything is saved. A duplicate number or name only warns; going over your plan's hive limit blocks the batch. Nothing is created until you confirm.

Larger batches save a chunk at a time, with an on-screen count of hives created so far. If a save is interrupted — a dropped connection, for instance — the confirm button changes to Retry, and tapping it picks up exactly where the batch left off with no hive created twice. Stay on the review screen until the batch finishes or shows Retry: closing the app first leaves the remaining hives in that batch uncreated, with no prompt to resume them when you reopen.

5.8 Searching for a Hive

Tap the search icon on an apiary's hive list to open Hive Search. Type part of a hive's name or its operational number, and matching hives appear as you type. Tap a result to open that hive's detail screen directly.