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My software is multilingual, means it is translated into about 13 languages.
This means that the help files and manuals should follow the version of Bidata
released. This I am sorry to tell is not the fact. A translation of Bidata is a
huge job even it is simple, and to put the translation of manuals and help files
into same hands of volunteers that have been so kind to translate the software
is not fair. I therefore will ask you to help me out in this, so that the
manuals and help files can be brought up to date. I can’t pay you by money but
will grant you a big registration in return for your help. Please help me and
your fellow beekeepers.
BIDATA
Program for beekeeping and queen breeding
Version for windows 98/NT/2000/XP
Developed by Jorn Johanesson
March 2003
18. March 2003
Bidata © copyright 1992/03 by
the EDBi Foundation and Jorn Johanesson.
Manual © 2003 Jorn Johanesson
and Ken Morris.
Program Jorn Johanesson Spurvevej 2, Assens DK-9550 Mariager Mobil Phone. (+45) 29 24 02 27
Software download HTTP://apimo.dk/download1.htm
The Bidata software
will behave differently, depending on the registration:
· The Normal
software, allows 40 bee colonies.
· Expanded software,
allows unlimited queen entries.
· Demo software,
which has all the facilities of the expanded program, except that it is limited
to ten hives.
PREFACE
The first
beekeeping software for maintaining hive notes was offered to the Danish
beekeeper society in 1987. Since then the software has been extensively
redeveloped, thanks to the help I have received from the Beekeeper Society in
Denmark and feedback from the software users. Criticism has always been welcome
and I have listened to it with great interest, because the software is intended
to meet the needs of beekeepers.
Thank you to all
who have contributed with criticism, suggestions and ideas. I hope that users
of the software will continue to forward their ideas and suggestions to me, so
that the software can be as useful as possible.
Bidata is a DATABASE
PROGRAM specifically developed for use in beekeeping, for both normal hive
note use and queen breeding.
The purpose of the
software is to make hive note writing simple and efficient, and to assist the
beekeeper in judging the various qualities of the queens, based on notes taken
throughout the bee year. The Program makes use of the judgement scale from the
Danish Beekeeper Foundation and is inspired by the Official Hive Note card
distributed in 1990 by DBF.
INTRODUCTION
Bidata is a
program that can run by itself (No runtime module is needed). The database is a
Borland Paradox database and it is possible to make an SQL search in the
various databases. The software is multilingual and the language can be changed
from the Tool menu. The default language is English. The Bidata program,
when run for the first time, will ask you to select a language for the
software.
Bidata is a
database containing records that can be seen as electronic Hive Notes
containing data entered after visiting the beeyard.
The Bidata
database can be seen as a card file with predefined index cards.
Each new bee year
a new card file is generated. The card file is in two parts; daily hive notes,
and calculated index cards.
The Bidata
software is complex in its functions. Although considerable effort has gone
into making the interface as simple as possible, it is strongly recommended
that you read the manual in its entirety.
Bidata enables you
to:
·
Enter, read, edit and delete Hive Notes.
·
Calculate the INDEX of the queens within bee yards.
·
Print the last notes you made as a work sheet for use in the bee yard.
·
Search the database by using a SQL builder, showing only the data you
wish to check. You can customise the SQL search to suit your particular needs.
·
Compare queen sisters within a bee yard. It also makes it possible to
compare sisters placed in different bee yards.
·
Move hives from one bee yard to another or move a whole bee yard to
another location.
·
Display graphic representation of Index calculated data and a lot more
which you may not require yet, but is available as the need arises.
System
requirements:
Bidata is
developed for use on an IBM or IBM Compatible PC running Microsoft WindowsTM . The software might run on
other computers but it is required that Microsoft WindowsTM is installed or that the platform is compatible with the Microsoft
Windows TM platform.
It is recommended
that the computer is provided with at least an Intel 386dx processor. An Intel 486dx 100 or better is preferable.
Memory requirement is 4 Mb or better.
INSTALLATION of the WIN-98/NT/2000/XP software
The software package comes on a CD-ROM for registered
users.
Insert CD-ROM. The CD-ROM should load an Autorun
routine. If the Autorun does not show up then navigate to the directory with
“setup.exe” in it or use “Install/remove” software from the control panel. The “setup.exe” file is found on the CD-ROM
in directory “EDBi/WIN95/Bidatawin95_98/Cdrom/DISK1/”
The set-up will ask several questions suggesting
defaults: It is recommended to use default directories.
If you have purchased the software you will have
received the registration.
If you got the software from a friend, or have
received the Demo software, just enter what you like as a serial number. All
inputs are accepted, but only the correct registration number will turn the
software into registered software.
You will be offered three kinds of installation:
typical which will
install both the Bidata software and the Pollen database and all language
files. This will use 10 Mb of your hard drive.
compact which is
recommended for normal use. Only the necessary files needed for running the
program are installed and only Danish and English language files will be
installed. (Use Selective installation to install other language’s.)
Selective here you have a
custom installation and install only the components you need.
It is highly recommended that you choose to reboot the
computer. This will ensure that the computer will launch all necessary files
and enable newly installed files.
Running the
software for the first time:
When you launch the software for the first
time you will be presented with some information screens. Please read these in
their entirety. They give information about program behaviour, limitations,
addresses and so on. Some Bidata software packages contain incorrect
registration fee information. The registration fee is DKr 650.00 (Danish Crooner), which is approximately US
$100.00 for a full registration, or DKr 275 (Danish Crooner), which is approximately
US $45 for a 40-hive registration
When you have
passed the information screens, you will be asked to enter details in a
personal form, comprising two input fields. One is for your initials, which are
used for naming the queens. The queen name is constructed from your initial and
the hive number. This is the Buckfast method of naming queens.
The second input
field is a password used to protect your data. There is no password stored in
the data files, it is used if you want to create a new database, empty a
database and some other functions involving potential loss of data.
You will also be
shown a form from which you can choose to let Bidata act as queen breeder
software or just as normal hivenote software.
I suggest that you
keep Auto create queen numbers checked, even if you are not a queen breeder.
The queen number is very like a civil registration number. This assures a
unique identification of the queen. This is needed when I add a family tree to
the software. The queen number is combined from your initials, the year the
queen in introduced, the race of queen, a serial number and a number of the
hive where the queen is introduced. If you decide to uncheck this, then only
your initials will be used as queen number.
If you have registered the software by
now, the program should appear as registered, otherwise you will find a menu
item enabling you to register the software package.
Entering data into
the database.
This is the most important part of getting
your program to perform to your requirements. A database program is only as
useful as the quality of input data allows it to be! You must discipline
yourself to input all the necessary data with care and accuracy.
Make your hive
notes in the bee yard and then enter the data at your earliest opportunity. To
help you in collecting data the ‘quick entry’ screen and the work list printout
have the same layout. As you enter hive details in the database the hives will
appear in the bee yard work list. The work list is meant to be taken with you
to the bee yard, where it is used to update your data. It shows the last
entries made, so that you need only input the changes since the last entry.
There is also an opportunity to make a printout of a big hive note card, which
you can configure to your needs.
Quick entry screen
The spreadsheet
style entry screen is named quick entry screen. Although it looks like a spreadsheet, it
does not function in that way. It is just an interface to enter routine data
quickly and easily
If there are no
hive notes present in the database, then you will be presented with a hive add
request form. The following is the no queen breeder screen.
Queen Field.
In the Queen field
you enter the queen identification name. It is preferable that you use your
initials and the hive number like this: JJ0010, but you can enter whatever you
like.
If you have chosen to use auto generation
of queen numbers, then this was already filled out with this new specific
number like here in the queen breeder mode screen:
The edit buttons
indicates that you can edit the dropdown lists to suit your needs.
Queen Mother Field. (Buckfast - Queen
breeder mode)
In the Queen
Mother field you enter the identification name of the queen, which produced
the egg from which the current queen developed. If you don’t know it leave it blank, an unknown entry is better
than just putting in a name. This is important for the bee family tree function
that I am developing. It is a program which monitors the success or otherwise
of queen breeding activities.
Drone Mother Field. (Buckfast -Queen breeder mode)
In the Drone
Mother field you only enter data if the drone mother is known. If you know
the drone source, which normally only queen breeders using artificial
insemination do, then you enter the drone mother identification.
Hive Number field.
In the BeeHive number
field you will enter the hive number where the queen is placed. This is the
only field that must be unique on each new hive. The Bidata program will
complain if you don’t follow this rule but try to duplicate a hive number. The
reason is that the hive number is used as an internal key in the Bidata program. The field is a dropdown list
from which a spare hive can be selected or a new hive can be established.
Beeyard field.
In the Beeyard
field you will enter the name of the bee yard in which the hive is placed. You
will preferably use the name of the location where the bee yard is placed. If
you already have bee yards set up then the dropdown list can be used to select
the bee yard.
When you have
entered the data into the New Beehive Add Form and press the OK button,
you will be presented with the calendar, where you can select the date for the
actual hive note.
When you have selected the date, the next
step will be to enter the hive note data into the database. This is done in the
input form, which will pop up next.
As you can see from the picture, the input
form is grouped together with relevant data. The first group is about the most
common notes. The second group is about the food and the third group is about
the index criteria, which is the absolute power of this software, and
distinguishes it from other hive note software on the market. Those groups need
a little more explanation. Generally when you are visiting the hive you have a
feeling of what is going on. Is the hive easy to work with? Is it going to
swarm? Are the bees bumping at you? And so on. A lot of this behaviour is
genetic in nature, and by careful selection among the queens that produce bees
with behaviour you like, you can increase the joy of beekeeping, and also get
much better results, not only in honey harvest but also in handling the bees. I
have to mention that you don't have to judge all of it every time you open a
hive. You can limit this judging to what actually is up. The group is judged by
numbers from 1 to 5 where five is the best and 1 is the condition where you
have to do something about it, mainly replacing the queen with a new queen with
better genetic traits.
The Steady
tendency is the behaviour
of the bees when you open the hive, and maybe want to study the queen. Number
5 is where the bees stay in the hive and only a few bees lift off into the
air. The queen is easy to study; because she continues to do her job and the bees
will not try to escape the comb, even if the comb is lifted out. You can keep
the bees under control just by spraying them with a little water. and it is
easy to shuttle off the bees. Number
1 is given if you are getting a lot of bees into the air, the queen is
trying to escape, and when you lift a comb out the bees will try to escape
maybe building a lump of bees on the button stick of the frame and then fall
off. It is impossible to study the queen even if she is marked, because she
will run away as far as she can, and maybe run out of the hive too. Your
judgement here is what you feel about the situation.
Here are the
Judging definitions:
5. Very quiet, the
bees are moving quietly around on the combs, even if provoked. They are easy to
shuttle off the combs. They don’t go into the air even if you shuttle them off.
4. Quiet. The bees
a little disturbed on the combs (don’t lift off, but lift off if shuttled). Or
they are difficult to shuttle off the combs.
3. Nervous. The
bees are rushing around on the combs and few bees lift off unprovoked.
2. Disturbed. The
bees run off the combs. A lot of bees lift off unprovoked
1. Very disturbed.
A lot of bees in the air.
The Swarm
Inertness is
important because it can be very time consuming to catch swarms and to try to
eliminate swarming which is practically impossible to stop when it gets going:
The bees have made swarm cells and they have started to seal those. Some queens
are more up to swarming than others, and the swarm tendency is a genetic trait.
You can limit the swarming physically by taking care of keeping the balance in
the hive. A normal colony is around 30.000 individuals, with 200 drones. If the
hive population increases significantly over that point the colony will think
it is strong enough for a natural splitting of the hive. So by doing a split
into two colonies , and giving the split a new mated queen, will have the
effect, that the hive is going back to normal and you can use the swarm
catching time better by taking care of those new colonies. The swarming can
also be triggered by a heavy honey flow filling each empty cell up with nectar,
and thereby blocking the egg production of the queen. Be aware that a good
queen can produce around 2000 eggs a day. If she is restricted in this by too
little room, the pheromones she produces will lower and thereby trigger the
swarming. A factor is also that the nurse bees will have little to do, and the
balance in the hive is out of order. The ideal situation is where there is room
in the broad chamber for both egg production and the nectar flow. There is work
for the building bees as well for the nurse bees. If these conditions are met
some queens will just continue working and the bees will replace the queen when
the time comes (silent queen exchange), but some will swarm at every change
given, maybe even swarm more than once in a year.
5. No swarm cells
with eggs or larvae.
4. Swarm cells
with eggs, but no swarming, and no effort made to stop swarming.
3. Swarm cells
with eggs. One action taken, to stop swarming.
2. Swarm cells
with eggs and feed larvae. More than one action taken to stop swarming.
1. Swarming,
despite all attempts to stop it.
Tendency to sting
or Aggressiveness is an important issue to face. Mainly because of the extra
workload and discomfort from working aggressive bees gives, but also to point
out that bee poison is poison and it is wise to limit the stings received from
the bees to a minimum, because one can develop an allergic reaction, and
thereby be forced to give up beekeeping. Some bees are very aggressive and some
are very gentle to work with. The ideal is not to receive one single
non-provoked sting. With very aggressive bees one may have to dress for full
protection whilst still 50 meters away from the beeyard.
5. Don’t sting.
Can be handled without use of smoke
4. Don’t sting if
moderate smoke is used
3. 1–3 stings
unprovoked.
2. 4-10 stings
unprovoked
1. Very
aggressive. Are very willing to sting. .
Tendency to
Sickness is also important to watch out
for, because it is also genetically influenced. This criteria judges how
effective the bees are in keeping the brood chamber free of sick brood. Some bees
are able to keep the most common bee diseases away by quickly removing sick or
dead brood while other colonies break down.
5. You never see
any sign of sickness
4. You see some
nosema or chalk brood and the like but they handle it themselves.
3. You see
evidence of tracheal mites or American Foulbrood in action (No medication
given)
2. You have to
treat the bees to keep them alive.
1. The colony will
not recover.
The right side of
the input form is available for you to use if needed. The varroa checkbox is
normally kept checked, at least if you are living in Europe. The varroa count
is to be given the daily fall down of varroa mites, because this is important
to know for the treatment of varroa. A guideline for the varroa count is two
hundred times the count, to get a picture of the varroa attachments. Even as
little as 2 daily counts will demand a treatment in one or another way or you
will lose the colony, either by breaking down or in a swarm where all bees will
leave the hive in an attempt to get rid of the varroa mites. The Indian bee
handles the varroa situation in this way, and it is genetically built into many
normal colonies. The treatments you use can be tracked in the sickness
database, where you can enter the treatment used for different diseases.
The plus and extra
fields are for creative use. The plus fields work in this way. Numbers added
will be accumulated when an index calculation is done while the Diff field will
be subtracted. The difference field is not of practical use, at least I have
not found a practical use for it. It is up to you if you use it or not. You can
change the labels of these fields, and here is a suggestion for the plus field
labels.
Plus1 change to
larvae means larvae used for raising queens.
Plus2 change to
queen’s means larvae accepted and fed up to queens and hatched.
Plus3 change to
mated means queens hatched and succeeded in mating.
Plus4 change to
Used means used for nucleus hives or sold.
This way you can
keep track of success in queen breeding for each hive used for this purpose.
The extra fields
can be similarly relabelled, and can be used for private judgement of the
colony in other points than the points meant for index calculation.
You will also find
three short notes. Note 1 will come out as a print in worksheet (the field
worksheet that is printed when you press the button with the printer from the
front), and can be used for what to do next.
The other two can be short notes about weather, temperature or the like.
The two big notes
are big notes, because you have 65000 chars available in each note. I doubt you
ever will need more notes taken when visiting the hive.
When you press the
OK button, you will find the hive added into the database, shown in both the
upper half of the screen and in the lower half. The upper half will always
contain the last entered hive note and the lower part will contain all hive
notes entered for that beehive.
Explanation of the buttons
The navigator
buttons are used to navigate through the hive notes and to accept or cancel
changes made to hive notes. The Button Panel functions are (from left):
1.
Import queens from
previous bee year to current bee year, (It is only visible if you have a
database from the previous bee year).
2.
Add new hive note
for the current beehive.
3.
Add a new beehive
to the database.
4.
Auto create hives.
5.
Edit the queen.
6.
Activate the
disease database for the actual beehive.
7.
Group and colour
hives.
8.
Graphical display of
the index cards, (only shown if you have calculated an index for your bee
yards).
9.
Generate and print
barcodes for the hive.
10. Calculate Index
for your apiaries
11. General notebook
for the apiary
12. Close Quick entry
13. Update the counts
of hives shown in grid.
14. Update the bee
yard list. Must be done if you change language.
15. Bee yard list.
Shows the names of the bee yards you have entered into the database and is used
to limit the show of hive notes to a specific bee yard.
16.
The two note boxes. Each showing Big notes. The note box can contain up
to 65000 characters in all. I think this is more than you will ever need to
enter. There is a total of five note fields available, but they are only
available from the Input data screen. If you click those then a bigger screen
will popup. You can here edit the notes.
17.
Prepare for Palm. If you check this then only the hives in grid will be
transferred to the palm handheld. This checkbox is only visible if you have
installed the Palm support.
The above shown
picture shows the two panels that can be hidden from the show menu item.
1.
Select all the hives in grid.
2.
Select grouped hives.
3.
Undo selection.
The round radio buttons are a
quick filtering option.
The first radio button cancels
the radio button filtering.
The second radio button shows
those hives you have grouped.
The third radio button
selects the hives not yet grouped.
The fourth radio button
selects your breeding queens.
The update button simply
updates the hives shown in grid.
The repair database button
will repair the database if you get a key violation. This should not happen in
this new software.
The print button will print
out the grid in report form with the title in the edit books as heading.
The search button will bring
you to the search engine.
The filter panel allows you
to put an effective filtering on the hives in your database. This is especially
useful if you want to filter hives for manipulation such as multi add hive
notes for a group of hives or if you want to transfer the hives to the Palm
Handheld if you have one.
The finger button activates
the filtering defined in filter part.
The erase button clears the
filtering and the edit button allows you to edit the filtering conditions.
if you do not need the above
facilities you can turn those off by selecting the show menu item
Special features of the Quick
Hivenote Entry screen :
Pop Up Menu
Pressing the Right Mouse
button will launch a pop up menu at the mouse pointer position. In addition
to the push button panel functions, you can set the chart data you want
displayed. This function is limited to displays that are useful and practical.
As you can see nearly all
functions are at your fingertips. You can show and hide columns, edit the
column headings, search the database and a lot more.
The search engine is totally
new!
If you click the search item then
you will get to a new very powerful search screen, but before you get there you
will be asked about creating a new search template. Just type in a name and you will then be placed in the search
screen.
The new
engine does not require you to know anything about my database layout. When you
have built your query you click the blitz button, and the result is shown in
the grid.
You now
have the capability to export the data to text, Html and Dbase format. Those
exports allow you to import into Access, Excel and FrontPage. If you check the
“Keep Search” on exit then the quick entry will adopt the search result. Use
the Data model menu to get access to e.g. configuration. This though is a
complicated task, and I suggest you refrain from this if you are not familiar
with building queries. It is however, safe to change group names and reorganize
the fields into other groups. If you want to change the group names then be
aware that you cannot use double clicks on the group names. Use click to mark
it then click again to edit. You cannot use spaces in group names. A trick is
to write the group name with spaces in notepad, then copy this group name to
clipboard, and then paste into the group name edit.
The following shows a Chart result shown as pie
charts.
The Index calculation
The index calculation feature
distinguishes Bidata software from other hive note programs on the market and
is at the core of Bidata design. Index calculation makes it possible to
directly compare queens within a bee yard and even queens from different bee
yards, normally not possible. Accordingly, it is relevant to search for queens
with a specific index in all bee yards. You create a new search template in the
search engine set up for this purpose.
In the search select the index
and set the value between what you want. e.g. index bigger than 97 and index
less than 100.
Clicking the blitz button
will then show the queens that apply to those criteria selection.
Remember
to get this into play you must have calculated index for the hives.
About multi selection!
To make it easy to maintain
the database it is possible to make use of multi selection in some functions!
You can multi select by
holding down the Ctrl key and then click on the hives you want to select. This allows
you to e.g. add a hive note to all selected just by filling out one note. The
same goes for the disease screen, or selecting for grouping or barcode
printout. You can also move and delete multi selected hives.
It means that if you have
treated a bee yard with Apistan then you can multi select the hives in the yard
and then add a disease treatment to all of the hives.
Select the Custom install and activate the
items you want installed.
How to use the Language
manager.
In your programs open the
Language manager
It will bring up the
following screen:
Now in file open an existing
project:
You will now be asked to open
a defined language file
You can cancel this and then
create your own language file based on an open languagefile
Use the help button to get
further explanations.
Here I have created a Spanish
(Argentina) language file.
You can now from the language
menu item sort the language in ascending order and you will now find the items
sorted so that equal items are listed together. This have the benefit that if
you translate an item all equal items are translated at once.
E.g. if you translate the
first occurrence of Continue
UnRegistered ??, then the remaining equal
strings will be translated too.
It might seems a bit heavy to
go through all but doing this kind of work helping me out will not take that
time it at first seems to do. I think it can be done within a few days. And the
benefit of this translations tool is that you can translate the software into
the deep of it.
You have two sections to
translate:
The Section of form’s and
unit’s.
You will find some items like
this :
Equal=is equal to
NotEqual=is not equal to
LessThan=is less than
LessOrEqual=is less than or
equal to
GreaterThan=greater than
GreaterOrEqual=greater than
or equal to
IsNull=is null
InList=is in list
StartsWith=starts with
NotStartsWith=does not start
with
Contains=contains
NotContains=does not contain
Between=is between
When you meet those only translate what is after the =
also be care full here not to
delete the @ because it is placeholders.
[Query Panel] do not
translate it is a place mark.
ttlFilter=Choose records
where @ of the following apply
ttlBracket=@ of the following
apply
ttlAll=all
ttlAny=any
If you meet a & then this
means that the letter following is a hotkey letter
In one place you will find
&& this is not an error and
must stay.
%Something should not be
translated.
I hope for your cooperation
in this for me and other users of my software important task.
When you have finished
translation the only thing you have to do is to send the translated file to me.
It will have a name of
BidataWin98_Xp.XXX.lng where the XXX stands for your language
abbreviation. E.g. ES for Spanish, FR for French and so on.
Best regards Jorn Johanesson
(Jørn Johanesson)