Comparison

ApiaryOS vs Apiary Assistant

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

ApiaryOS

Features
Read full description

**B-HyveOS is a beekeeping app for people who actually keep bees.** Every serious tool, in one elegant iPhone and iPad app. Built for beginners finding their way through a first season and for longtime keepers tracking a hundred inspections a year. **Your apiary, organized.** Group hives into named yards โ€” "North Yard", "Backfield", wherever your bees live โ€” each with its own location. Weather and bloom predictions come from exactly the right spot. Add hives one tap at a time or pin a whole apiary at once. **Inspections done right.** A guided inspection form walks you through what to check and why โ€” queen spotted, eggs/larvae/capped brood, honey and pollen stores, temperament, pests, disease signs โ€” with short educational notes so you're learning as you log. Temperature auto-fills from the weather at your hive's location. **Live weather and forage predictions.** Apple WeatherKit drives current conditions and a 5-day forecast for every hive. Growing degree days (GDD50) accumulate from your biofix date and power a built-in library of 25+ North American nectar and pollen plants. You see what's blooming now, what's starting soon, and what finished weeks ago. **Serious Varroa tracking.** Log mite counts by method (alcohol wash, sugar roll, sticky board), sample size, and mites counted. Watch the 3% economic threshold color-coded across the app โ€” green below 2%, orange 2โ€“3%, red above. The Varroa story, properly told. **Honey, treatments, feedings.** Track every harvest by frames pulled and weight. Log treatments by product โ€” Apivar, oxalic acid, Formic Pro, Apiguard. Record sugar syrup feedings by ratio and amount. See lifetime totals on each hive. **Voice notes with on-device transcription.** Narrate what you see while you're at the hive. B-HyveOS records audio and transcribes with Apple's on-device speech recognition โ€” your voice never leaves your phone. Attach notes to a specific hive, inspection, harvest, or leave them loose in the Journal. **Checklists for every season.** Eight curated templates โ€” pre-inspection prep, spring opening, summer maintenance, fall prep, winter prep, swarm capture kit, extraction day, quick routine check. Check off items as you work. **Learn as you go.** Beekeeping glossary, seasonal calendar, first-year checklist, and links to the best free resources โ€” Honey Bee Health Coalition's Varroa tools, Bee Informed Partnership, Cooperative Extension, American Beekeeping Federation. **Privacy by design.** Your data lives in your own iCloud โ€” there are no servers because B-HyveOS doesn't need any. Voice recordings stay on your device. Sign in with your iCloud account and it just works across iPhone and iPad. **For the curious beekeeper.** For beginners: the explanations, the first-year checklist, the threshold colors that tell you when something's wrong. For experts: per-hive phenology, GDD correlation, a clean interface that gets out of your way during a 20-minute inspection in full suit. **Requires iOS 17 or later. Free. No subscription, no in-app purchases.**

About

Apiary Assistant

Features
Read full description

Apiary Assistant is the all-in-one app for beekeepers who want healthy, productive hives. TRACK EVERYTHING - Organize apiaries and hives, with photos, status, and full history - Quick Check or guided Full Inspection โ€” with hands-free voice mode - Log mite washes and treatments; the app schedules your next check automatically - Record harvests, feedings, weights, queen events, and equipment STAY AHEAD OF VARROA - Mite-per-100-bees tracking with clear treat thresholds - Smart reminders tell you which hives need a check and why SEE YOUR SEASON AT A GLANCE - Dashboard charts for apiary health, mite load (with treat-threshold line), and harvest by product - Home-screen widget for hives, apiaries, and mite checks due ON YOUR WRIST (Apple Watch) - Your beekeeping to-dos and mite checks due, right on your watch - Add a complication to keep today's tasks on your watch face - Check tasks off from the watch โ€” changes sync straight back to your iPhone WEATHER THAT WORKS FOR BEES - Per-apiary conditions and inspection readiness - Alerts for cold, heat, wind, rain, and frost โ€” with a season archive WORK AS A TEAM - Share an apiary, assign tasks, and see who did what in the Activity Log - Everything syncs across iPhone, Apple Watch, Android, and the web dashboard MEET ABBY, YOUR AI BEEKEEPING ASSISTANT (Advanced) - Ask anything about hive management, varroa, queens, diseases, and seasonal tasks - Attach a photo โ€” "is this the queen?", "what disease is this?", "is this normal?" โ€” and Abby describes what she sees, her confidence, and how to verify it - Abby always reminds you that AI photo ID isn't always correct and points you to trusted resources like your state apiary inspector and local extension office Apiary Assistant offers optional Standard and Advanced subscriptions. Abby's AI chat and photo analysis are part of the Advanced plan. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the period; manage or cancel in your Apple Account settings. Privacy Policy: https://turtlebeehoney.com/apiary-assistant-privacy-policy/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ **AN APP THAT FITS YOUR EXPERIENCE Choose Beginner, Intermediate, or Seasoned. Beginners get step-by-step guidance and a month-by-month to-do list. Seasoned keepers get a fast, clean workspace with nothing in the way. Change it anytime. ** DIAGNOSE PROBLEMS FAST See something wrong in the brood? Tap the symptoms you observe and get the most likely diseases and pests โ€” ranked by likelihood, with reference photos and a full illustrated guide covering AFB, EFB, chalkbrood, varroa, small hive beetle, wax moth and more. ** WORKS EVERYWHERE, TOGETHER Use it on iPhone, Android, and the web โ€” all in sync. Share apiaries with a partner, a club, or a mentor and keep records together in real time. ** EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN THE YARD - Inspections, mite counts, treatments and harvests - Visual hive equipment stacks โ€” see every box, super and feeder - Queen rearing plans and family-tree lineage tracking - Weather-aware reminders and seasonal task lists - Expenses, shopping lists and yield tracking ** BUILT FOR REAL CONDITIONS - Sunlight-readable high-contrast mode - Colorblind-friendly palette - Voice capture โ€” log notes with gloves on - Ask Abby, your built-in beekeeping helper, anything KNOW YOUR FORAGE See which nectar and pollen plants are in season near your yard, month by month โ€” so you know when the flow is coming and when to feed. Start free. Keep better bees.

Screenshots

ApiaryOS4 screens
Apiary Assistant4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: ApiaryOS at every 4 days against Apiary Assistant's monthly. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ApiaryOS ships an update every 4 days, Apiary Assistant monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 15, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
ApiaryOS versus Apiary Assistant: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterApiaryOSApiary Assistant
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 4 days โ€” betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size5 MB49 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJW McCulloughTimothy Miller

In-app purchases

None

ApiaryOS

No in-app purchases

None

Apiary Assistant

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ApiaryOS free?
ApiaryOS is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Apiary Assistant free?
Apiary Assistant is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ApiaryOS or Apiary Assistant have ads?
Neither ApiaryOS nor Apiary Assistant shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ApiaryOS or Apiary Assistant?
ApiaryOS ships an update every 4 days, and Apiary Assistant monthly. Most recently, ApiaryOS was updated on September 15, 2026 and Apiary Assistant on September 19, 2026.

Other comparisons