Well, about 40 people have now received copies of the yards spreadsheet,
and I've heard very little back.  I'm wondering if the file came through
in good condition, was able to be decoded, and then ran okay on users'
machines.
 
Assuming most were able to take a look at it, I'd be interested in some
discussion.  Jorn has already written me his comments privately and it is
interesting to note that there is a large difference in focus between our
approaches.
 
He feels that history of queens and families is important and I gather
this is a main goal of his record system.  On the other hand, I feel that
I simply need to know what my guys are doing and to be able to see what
may have been overlooked -- as well as what yards are performing well in
wintering and production and which are not.  I buy my queens these days,
so breeding is not a concern.  We evaluate different queen suppliers
simply by marking the hives when installing queens and do not keep
records.  When we pull honey, or pick up deadouts in the spring the
results are apparent.
 
I'd like some comments, public and/or private on the sheet and the format.
 If you are sparing my feelings, don't worry; as many suspect, I don't
have any <G>.  I learn by being wrong, so any criticisms -- no matter how
crudely expressed --  are appreciated.
 
I don't recall if I mentioned it, but there were some formulae in the
sheet to calculate the supers per hive on a running basis as well as to
calculate approximate yields from the number of supers pulled in each
yard.  I inadvertantly stripped them out when blanking the data, but they
are easily added back in.
 
Maybe everyone is intimidated by the huge array of data, I know I am, but
I'm hoping some ideas will come from this on how to better manage it.
 
Allen