When to inspect or harvest honey: weather recommendations¶

Plan: Apisense PRO AI

The app checks the weather forecast for the apiary and tells you when you can do a full inspection, a quick inspection from the top, or a honey harvest. For today, it shows a window of hours. For the next days, it shows which days will probably be good. The recommendations are in the Pro AI plan and work only in an apiary with a Hub.

Where to find the weather recommendations¶

Apiaries screen: the card of each apiary shows a row with the window for today and the Next N days row.
Hive screen: Hive state tab, Weight card, the row of the next days.

What the window for today means¶

The row on the apiary card shows the nearest window, for example:

Full inspection: 10:00-16:00: you can open the hive and examine the frames in these hours.
Quick inspection: now, until 15:00: the weather lets you do only a short inspection from the top, without removing frames.
Inspection: no window for an inspection today: today the weather is not good for opening the hive.

Tap the row to expand the bar of hours from 06:00 to 20:00. Each hour has a colour and an icon.

What the colours and icons mean¶

full inspection: the darkest field. The weather lets you open the hive and examine the frames.
a quick look from the top: a lighter field. The weather lets you do only a short look from the top.
do not open: the lightest field with a border. Do not open the hive.
weather for a honey harvest: honey dipper icon. The weather lets you harvest honey, and at least one monitored hive has honey that is ready, or will be ready by that day.

In dark mode, the shades are inverted. The legend below the bar shows only the levels that occur on that day.

The weather for a honey harvest icon does not show outside the harvest season, or when no monitored hive has honey that is ready. The app assesses if the honey is ready from the Scale data.

Why there is no window today¶

Expand the window for today. Below the bar of hours, in the Why: section, the app gives the reasons separately for the inspection and for the harvest, for example:

rain, strong wind, too humid, too cold, too hot,
outside flight hours,
not enough time left today for a full inspection,
the honey is not ready yet, outside the harvest season.

Good to know¶

The recommendations are a help. Before you open the hive, always assess the weather at the apiary.
When the forecast is older than 24 hours, the apiary card shows this.

Weather recommendations are in the Pro AI plan. The usual weather forecast (below) is also in the AI plan.

Usual weather forecast¶

The apiary card also shows the usual weather forecast: the temperature, a description of the weather (for example Rain) and the lowest and highest temperature for today. Tap the weather part to expand the hourly forecast with the temperature, and the next days with the lowest and highest temperature. The app does not give the quantity of rain. The forecast also works only in an apiary with a Hub.