8. Hive Operations

The Hive History section on the hive detail screen is where you record significant colony events: splits, combines, and inactivation. Each event is saved as a timestamped entry in the hive's timeline. Adding, removing, or correcting equipment happens separately, in 5.5 Boxes / Equipment Configuration.

8.1 Splitting a Hive

A split creates a new colony from an existing one. In Bee Inspector, recording a split creates a new hive record for the breakaway colony.

How to record a split

1. Open the hive you are splitting.
2. Scroll to the Hive History section.
3. Tap Record Split.
4. Fill in the split wizard:

• Split date
• Name for the new hive (e.g. "Hive 5", "Nuc 2")
• New hive type (Nuc, Langstroth, Top Bar, etc.)
• Number of frames moved to the new hive
• Where the queen goes (stays on source hive or moves to the new hive)
• Equipment to Move — pick which brood boxes or supers, if any, go with the new hive. Nothing moves unless you select it.
• Optional notes

1. Tap Record Split to confirm.

A "Hive Created" dialog appears next, the same one you see when adding a hive from the Hives screen: choose Set Up Boxes / Equipment to go straight to the new hive's Boxes / Equipment Configuration card, or Skip for now to return to the source hive and add equipment later.

What the split does

• Creates a new hive in the same apiary with the name, type, and frame count you specified.
• Records a split event in the source hive's history timeline.
• Moves only the equipment you explicitly selected. If you selected none, the new hive starts unconfigured ("Not set up yet") until you add equipment, either right away via the post-split dialog or later from its own Boxes / Equipment Configuration card.
• If the queen moves to the new hive, her queen record is transferred automatically. The source hive becomes queenless.
• All previous inspection records remain on the source hive — they are never moved or deleted.

8.2 Adding Equipment or Renaming a Hive

Moving a colony into larger equipment (same bees, same queen, just a bigger box) doesn't go through Hive History at all.

Adding the new box

1. Open the hive and find the Boxes / Equipment Configuration card.
2. Tap the tune icon.
3. Choose Add, then pick the role (Brood Box or Super), size, and frame capacity.
4. Confirm.

This is the same workflow you use any time you add, remove, or correct equipment (see 5.5 Boxes / Equipment Configuration), not a separate "upgrade" mode.

Renaming the hive or changing its type

Tap the pencil icon on the hive detail screen to open Edit Hive. Use it to rename "Nuc 2" to "Hive 4" once it graduates from a nuc box, or to change the hive type.

Either way, all inspection history stays under the same hive. The colony identity never changes.

8.3 Combining Hives

When you merge two colonies into one, open the hive that will be absorbed (e.g. the nucleus), not the destination hive.

1. Open the source hive (the one being absorbed).
2. Scroll to Hive History.
3. Tap Combine / Move. This goes straight into the combine wizard.
4. Select the destination hive — the one that continues as the active colony.
5. Choose what to do with the source hive's queen:

• Move queen to destination — use when the destination hive is queenless. The queen record transfers to the destination.
• Leave queen on source — use when the destination already has a queen and the source queen will be lost (e.g. newspaper method). The queen record stays on the now-inactive source.

1. Choose an Equipment Disposition:

• Leave on source — the default. The source hive's equipment stays recorded on it even after it goes inactive.
• Move to destination — pick exactly which equipment moves with the colony.

1. Tap Combine Hives.

After combining:

• The source hive is marked inactive with reason "Combined with another hive".
• All inspection, harvest, and queen records on the source hive are preserved for analytics.
• A merge event is recorded in the destination hive's history timeline.

8.4 Inactive Hives

Marking a hive inactive records that the colony has ended without deleting the hive or its data. Use this instead of deleting whenever you want to keep historical records.

Reasons for marking inactive

• Colony died (winter loss, disease, starvation)
• Colony absconded
• Hive sold
• Colony combined with another hive
• Equipment taken out of service

How to mark inactive

1. Open the hive detail screen.
2. Tap the ⋮ menu in the top right.
3. Choose Mark as Inactive.
4. Select a reason from the picker.
5. Confirm.

Viewing inactive hives

On the hive list screen for an apiary, use the Active / Inactive / All filter at the top. Inactive hive cards show a gray "INACTIVE" badge and the recorded reason.

Reactivating a hive

Switch the filter to Inactive or All to find the hive. Open it — an amber banner shows the reason and date. Tap Reactivate to return it to active status.