Comparison

ApiaryOS vs Hive Log

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

Hive Log

Features
Read full description

Hive Log is the field journal beekeepers have always deserved โ€” built for those who respect the craft and want to understand what their hives are telling them before swarming, supersedure, or colony failure becomes a crisis. LOG EVERY INSPECTION IN UNDER 5 MINUTES Structured inspection forms cover what matters: weather, colony demeanor, population, brood pattern, queen status, food stores, and varroa mite counts. Voice dictation keeps your gloves clean. Every inspection is permanently recorded and searchable. AI BROOD FRAME ANALYSIS Photograph a brood frame and Hive Log's on-device AI assesses pattern quality (solid, spotty, or scattered), estimates worker and drone brood ratios, flags queen cells, and delivers an expert-level reading โ€” the kind of frame knowledge that takes years to develop. NEW: SHAREABLE BROOD REPORTS Export a beautifully annotated frame image with queen cells and brood zones marked, plus an AI-written frame report card โ€” perfect for asking a mentor or sharing with your bee club. NEW: ICLOUD SYNC ACROSS DEVICES Log on the iPhone in the bee yard, review on the iPad in the truck. Your hives, inspections, and harvests stay in sync across all your devices via your private iCloud. NEW: SMART REMINDERS & WIDGETS Get nudged when a hive hasn't been visited, tighter reminders through swarm season, and weather-aware "good day to inspect" alerts. A home- and lock-screen widget shows today's recommended inspections, color-coded by health. NEW: AI SEASON REPORT & EXPORT Produce a polished end-of-season apiary report โ€” per-hive health, mite history, yield, queen changes โ€” as a PDF, plus a CSV of all your records for club reporting, taxes, or selling nucs. VARROA MITE TRACKER Log alcohol wash and sugar shake counts. Hive Log tracks mite levels over time, alerts you when counts cross the 2% treatment threshold, and surfaces seasonal treatment recommendations by method. SWARM PREDICTION Hive Log analyzes population trends, queen cell observations, and crowding from recent inspections to flag swarm risk before you've lost a swarm to the neighborhood. APIARY CALENDAR A locally accurate nectar flow timeline based on your apiary's location โ€” bloom timing, inspection cadence, treatment windows, and harvest timing by month, with a 5-day inspection forecast. QUEEN TRACKER Record queen lineage, marking color, install date, and performance. Track the standard IBRA annual color coding. AI surfaces supersedure predictions when a queen is failing. YIELD RECORDS Log honey, wax, and propolis harvests per hive. Track multi-year yield trends and identify your most productive colonies. DESIGNED FOR BEEKEEPERS WHO KNOW THE VOCABULARY Hive Log doesn't dumb down the terminology. Supersedure, burr comb, queen excluder, varroa, sacbrood โ€” these are your words. The app speaks your language. FREE TIER: 1 hive, 5 inspections โ€” enough to try it on your first season. HOBBYIST ($4.99/month or $39/year): Up to 10 hives, AI brood analysis, apiary calendar, mite alerts, smart reminders, widgets, season reports, and iCloud sync. 7-day free trial. APIARY PRO ($14.99/month or $79.99 lifetime): Unlimited hives, multi-apiary management, and the commercial yard dashboard โ€” for small commercial beekeepers. Your data stays yours. Hive Log keeps records on your device and your private iCloud, and never sells or shares your beekeeping data. โ€”โ€”โ€” Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://brainrash.com/apps/hive-log/privacy

Screenshots

ApiaryOS4 screens
Hive Log4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: ApiaryOS at none against Hive Log's 4. ApiaryOS also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs every 2 months) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads 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. Hive Log sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. ApiaryOS asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ApiaryOS ships an update every 4 days, Hive Log every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
ApiaryOS versus Hive Log: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterApiaryOSHive Log
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 4 days โ€” betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo โ€” betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.0 โ€” better26.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size5 MB11 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJW McCulloughJustin Pruskowski

In-app purchases

None

ApiaryOS

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Hive Log

Subscriptions3
  • Hive Log Hobbyist (Monthly)$4.991 Month
  • Hive Log Apiary Pro (Monthly)$9.991 Month
  • Hive Log Hobbyist (Annual)$29.991 Year
One-time1
  • Hive Log Lifetime$49.99

Questions

Is ApiaryOS free?
ApiaryOS is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Hive Log free?
Hive Log is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do ApiaryOS or Hive Log have ads?
Neither ApiaryOS nor Hive Log shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ApiaryOS or Hive Log?
ApiaryOS ships an update every 4 days, and Hive Log every 2 months. Most recently, ApiaryOS was updated on October 19, 2026 and Hive Log on October 11, 2026.

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