Treatments
A treatment record is the story of how you cared for a colony's health: what you applied, when, how much, and when the hive was safe again. Openbeehive keeps these records tidy and audit-ready, so that whether you are managing two hives in a garden or two hundred across several apiaries, you always have a clear, defensible history.
Treatments most often cover varroa control, but the same log works for any product you apply to a colony.
Why a complete treatment log matters
A good treatment log is more than a tidy habit.
- It protects your bees. Knowing exactly when you last treated, and with what, helps you avoid under-dosing, over-dosing, or repeating a product too soon.
- It protects your honey. Many products carry a withdrawal period, the time that must pass before honey can be harvested for human consumption. Recording it keeps treated honey out of your jars.
- It protects you. In many countries, beekeepers are legally required to keep records of certain treatments, especially veterinary medicines, and to retain them for a set number of years.
Record-keeping obligations vary widely from country to country and even region to region. The exact products you may use, the records you must keep, and how long you must keep them are all set by your local rules. Treat this page as guidance on using Openbeehive, not as veterinary or legal advice. Always follow the product label and your national authority.
What to record
When you add a treatment to a hive, capture as much of the following as applies. The more complete the entry, the more useful the log.
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Product name | Identifies exactly what was applied. |
| Active ingredient | Useful when products are rebranded or vary by region. |
| Method | How it was applied — trickling, sublimation, strips, evaporation. |
| Dose / amount | The quantity applied per hive. |
| Batch / lot number | Often legally required; ties the dose to a specific package. |
| Date applied | When you treated the colony. |
| Withdrawal until | The date honey from this hive is safe to harvest again. |
| Reason | What you treated for (e.g. varroa). |
| Notes | Weather, brood status, observed results, or anything else worth remembering. |
Record the batch number straight from the packaging at the time you treat. It is almost impossible to reconstruct later, and it is exactly the detail an inspector or auditor will ask for.
Adding a treatment
- Open the hive you treated.
- Choose Add treatment (treatments can also be logged from an inspection if you treat during a visit).
- Enter the product, dose, method and date, and the batch number if you have it.
- Set the withdrawal until date if the product specifies a withdrawal period.
- Save.
Because Openbeehive is offline-first, you can do this hive-side with no signal. The record is written to the local database instantly and syncs to the server in the background once you are back online. Nothing is lost if you log treatments standing in the apiary.
Withdrawal periods and harvesting
When you set a withdrawal until date, Openbeehive records when honey from that hive is safe to harvest again.
Make a habit of checking treatment dates before you pull supers. If a colony is still inside its withdrawal window, hold off on harvesting from it, or keep that honey separate and clearly out of the food chain until the period has passed.
Never harvest honey for human consumption from a hive that is still within a product's withdrawal period. When in doubt, wait, and always defer to the product label.
Keeping the log audit-ready
A few habits keep your records trustworthy.
- Log as you go. Record the treatment the day you apply it, not from memory weeks later.
- Be specific. "Treated for varroa" is far less useful than the product, dose and batch.
- Don't edit history to tidy it. If something changed, add a follow-up rather than rewriting the past.
- Treat every hive individually. Even when you apply the same product across an apiary, log it per hive so doses and withdrawal windows are accurate for each colony.
Because treatment entries sync across your devices, the log you build in the field is the same one you can review later at home, or share with anyone who has access to the apiary.
Treatments and varroa
The varroa mite is the reason most beekeepers reach for a treatment in the first place, and getting the timing right across the season is its own subject. For a fuller picture of monitoring mite levels, choosing an approach, and planning treatments around the beekeeping year, see the varroa guide.
Related pages
- Inspections record what you see; treatments record what you do about it.
- Harvests is where withdrawal periods matter most.
- The varroa guide covers monitoring and timing.