Other
Hive Ledger
Offline hive records for beekeepers: unlimited hives and apiaries for one flat price, with backups and export so inspection history is never lost.
In plain English
- What category is this?
- A software niche that does not fit the usual catalog buckets cleanly. Here the focus is consumer apps.
- The idea, briefly
Build a local-first beekeeping log that works in the apiary with no signal, covers unlimited hives and apiaries on one flat or one-time price, backs itself up on-device and exports with one tap, and is built around the treatment-and-recheck loop (log mite count, treatment and recheck) that paper and cloud apps make easy to forget. Caveat: HiveTracks already logs inspections free and Apiary Book already exports CSV from Android, so only the offline-plus-ownership-plus-unlimited-packaging is potentially novel and it is copyable.
More ▾- What buyers expect
People comparing tools like HiveTracks, Apiary Book, Beetight expect the basics to work without surprise fees or missing pieces. The loud complaints are: A beekeeping records app can close and delete years of records; and cloud records can be lost and support can go silent.
More ▾
- Sources
- 11
- Checked
- 6
- Competitors
- 3
- Gaps
- 7
- Page checked
- 6 · 55%
- Snippet only
- 5 · 45%
- Documented
- 9 · 64%
- Interpreted
- 5 · 36%
- complaint6
- market3
- pricing2
Competitors
3- Apiary BookFree
Parsed from public pricing blurbs (entry paid tier when available). Max in set: $1/mo.
| Competitor | From | Free tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| HiveTracks | Unverified | Yes | hivetracks.com✓ |
| Apiary Book | Free | Yes | web.apiarybook.com✓ |
| Beetight | Unverified | — | beetight.com✓ |
What customers complain about
7| Gap | Src |
|---|---|
A beekeeping records app can close and delete years of records. | |
Cloud records can be lost and support can go silent. | |
Established beekeepers with several hives hit bugs. | |
The paid plans feel pricey for what they do. | |
Small-scale keepers find the apps bloated. | |
Multi-apiary and multi-device use is the paywall. | |
Paper fails exactly where records matter. |
Documented Interpreted
How competitors find customers
3| Tactic | Src |
|---|---|
| Apiary Book: give the Android app away free for one apiary and up to nine hives, then upgrade to Pro for multiple apiaries, unlimited hives and cloud; | apiarybook.com✓ |
| HiveTracks: keep the mobile inspection app free and charge for desktop Pro; the company reports serving 40,000+ beekeepers across 150+ countries since 2010. | apps.apple.com✓ |
| Recruit from the Beetight shutdown: the closure notice pushed a live, self-identified 'tens of thousands' of record-keeping beekeepers to migrate, | beetight.com✓ |
Your angle & pricing wedge
| Piece | Claim | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Angle | A local-first beekeeping log that works in the apiary with no signal, covers unlimited hives and apiaries on one flat or one-time price, | |
| Wedge | Mechanism: bill the beekeeper once instead of metering cloud sync or apiaries, and make ownership the headline. The core is a structured on-device log, | web.apiarybook.com✓ |
How others got traction
3| Move | Why | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Apiary Book grew by giving away a free Android app for one apiary and up to nine hives, | Company-reported numbers on its own product page ('Over 210,000 people worldwide have already installed Apiary Book', | apiarybook.com✓ |
| HiveTracks has given away its mobile inspection app since 2010 and charges for desktop Pro features… | Company-attributed: the App Store listing states 'Since 2010, HiveTracks has worked with over 40,000 beekeepers across more than 150 countr… | apps.apple.com✓ |
| Beetight ran for 15 years as a solo-maintained subscription records app and reached thousands of us… | Founder-attributed in the shutdown notice. | beetight.com✓ |
Market heat
HiveTracks says it has worked with over 40,000 beekeepers across more than 150 countries since 2010.
Apiary Book reports over 210,000 people installed it, over 260,000 Android installs and more than 25,000 monthly active users.
Beetight, a 15-year beekeeping records app, closed on 2 Feb 2025 and deleted user data after 'tens of thousands of users still actively using it'.
Revenue signals
5| Signal | Src |
|---|---|
HiveTracks reports reaching 40,000+ beekeepers across 150+ countries since 2010 (self-reported, not audited); no revenue is published. | apps.apple.com✓ |
Apiary Book reports 210,000+ installs, 260,000+ Android installs and 25,000+ monthly active users (self-reported, not audited); no revenue is published. | apiarybook.com✓ |
Documented list prices: HiveTracks mobile app free with Pro at $6.99/month or $69.99/year. | hivetracks.com✓ |
Documented list prices: Apiary Book Basic free with Pro at EUR 6.66/month or EUR 80/year. | web.apiarybook.com✓ |
Beetight reached 'thousands of users, hundreds of thousands of hives' over 15 years on paid subscriptions before closing (self-reported in its shutdown notice)… | beetight.com✓ |
Should you build this?
Hobbyist beekeepers with more than one apiary or about ten hives are the people who pay today, because that is where the free tiers of HiveTracks (free field logging) and Apiary Book (one apiary, nine hives) stop and the paid plans begin, and tens of thousands of them just watched Beetight close in February 2025 and delete their records. The job is simple to say: keep years of hive inspections, mite counts and treatment history that survive a sunny apiary with no phone signal, a lost phone, and a software company going out of business. The weak spot is the free floor - HiveTracks gives away field logging and Apiary Book gives away one apiary, nine hives and cloud backup/restore, so most small hobbyists never pay, and a 15-year incumbent with 40,000 users cannot be outspent on support or community. A paid offer only works for multi-apiary keepers, beekeeping clubs and sideliners who sell honey, and the one-time price has to comfortably beat roughly $70-80 a year. This is not guaranteed to work. Before building, talk to 20 beekeepers who each run three or more apiaries, ask to see the records they keep now and what they pay for them, and ask for a paid pre-order of a one-time $29-39 offline app with automatic local backups and one-click export. Kill it if fewer than 5 of the 20 pay, or if most say the free HiveTracks or Apiary Book tier already covers everything they need.
More ▾
All sources
11| Source | Kind | Status | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
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| complaint | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
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| complaint | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-10-05 |