Hello All, Years ago B.C. (before computers). I used a system which was very inexpensive and worked great for keeping track of bee yard hive information. The system was not my idea but a idea I stole from my doctor. After a visit to my doctor for my yearly physical and my doctor told me I was in better health than he was he proceded to record the visit on a tape recorder. I asked him about the reocrding and he said he then gave the cassete to his bookkeeper and she recorded to records. He still uses the system today only now his bookkeeper puts the information on computer. He still doesn't use a handheld computer! So at a garage sale I found a 10 in. long by 2 in. wide cassete recorder. I have still got the recorder and still works but has quite a bit of propolis on it. For tapes I found a lady which sells cassette tapes at flea markets. She gave me boxes of old cassete tapes which were not popular cassetes. She was tired of taking these cassetes to flea markets and bringing home without a sale. She said she wished she had a person to give the unpopular tapes to as she had thrown many boxes in the trash of tapes of unknown and unpopular artists. I recorded my bee information over the material on the old unpopular tapes. On each cassete tape I would place a piece of tape with the date and yards. On the road to each yard I would push in the tape and listen to the comments I had made the last trip out. On a long drive I might listen to the whole years comments about the yard. The reading of a hand held means standing and reading or entering. Precious bee yard time to a busy beekeeper. Reading the hand held computer while driving can be hazardous to your health. I almost had a wreck trying to read and drive. I have seen several UPS drivers trying to work a handheld and drive the truck. Reading your printout from your main computer is still downtime. Transferring the information to your main computer is a nice feature of a hand held but do you really want to transfer all but the most important information? I no longer use the above system for everyday beekeeping but would if I was doing bee research. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri PS I and other employees used a hand held for about 7 years. We recorded the time we started, each break we took and much other useless information.(along with useful information) Took about a hour a day to enter all the information for the company. The handheld made our job harder because the same amount of work was expected by the company and simply wasn't possible. All downdown time entering information. Hard to type on the handheld. Like typing on a calculater. One big complaint I had was the screen was green and the letters black and the hand held was hard to read at times. Choose a handheld if possible with a white background with dark letters. . The handhelds were also always breaking down in those days. These handhelds cost the company around $2500 a piece back then. The batteries had to be charged on a special charger. They were top of the line. Sorry for the long post.