Hives record

Until now this blog has doubled as my Hives Record. This has been disfunctional for two reasons:

• It means I write too much and bore my readers
• The hive record format is not consistent between inspections and so is not comparable or interrogatable through time

Following a talk on hive records at the excellent Ealing Beekeepers Association yesterday, I intend to try to remedy this by removing the blow-by-blow inspection reports from the blog, and instead using Google docs (spreadsheet) to record my records of my hives. Here's a link to the Hives Record which I will keep up to date after each inspection. The format follows the BBKA guidance, though I have tweaked it slightly. The challenge, of course, is to make it succinct enough to be painless, verbose enough to be useful, and readable enough to be transparent. Comments are welcome. (I'll be updating it for a few more days yet.)

I'm thinking that what I need to accompany this is a laminated sheet with the same data fields and a wipeable marker so I can make summary notes whilst I am at the hives for subsequent entry into the spreadsheet. I have heard that some people take audio recordings of hive records whilst they inspect, though I have it on good authority from the person who wrote an article about this in Beecraft that he does not do this himself!

And the naked link:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ang92v02Z0p7dGFwbU9qTnF4UHN1RUxZdHdwdjQwU2c&hl=en

And text for me to copy (including link - will this work?) in every blog post regarding an inspection:
Hives Record updated.