Authoritative project documentation
ApiaryLens Marketing Overview
- Status: Public Preview 1 product messaging
- Last reviewed: 2026-07-17
Tagline: Know every hive. Empower every beekeeper.
ApiaryLens is an open-source apiary intelligence and hive-management application for people who keep bees and want an easier way to remember what is happening in every hive. It begins with a family or hobbyist and keeps the same portable history as the apiary grows toward mentors, clubs, education, research, and professional work.
It is being designed to help answer practical questions:
- Which hive needs to be checked next?
- When did we last see the queen?
- Did the mite count go up or down?
- Which hive was fed or treated?
- What photos did we take during the last inspection?
- When did we harvest honey?
- What may be blooming nearby?
- Should we ask a mentor to review this frame or inspection?
ApiaryLens Public Preview 1 is an early, usable product—not GA or a stable release. The safe synthetic demo, installable PWA, Cloudflare family profile, Docker Compose profile, documentation, and verifiable artifacts are available for controlled evaluation. Features and workflows may change, and updates may arrive frequently, sometimes multiple times in a day. Scout Bee and the standalone Windows application remain separate future releases.
Keep current backups while evaluating Preview 1. ApiaryLens must not be the sole copy of irreplaceable hive records or media.
What ApiaryLens Helps You Do
- Keep hive notes and history together.
- Track apiaries, hives, queens, inspections, equipment, mite counts, feeding, treatments, harvests, follow-ups, and manual weather observations.
- Build a private visual history of each hive with original photos and thumbnails.
- Work from a phone or tablet in the bee yard without dependable internet access, then synchronize later when using a connected deployment.
- Share authorized family history through owner, beekeeper, and viewer roles without exposing another organization.
- Export and retain control of hive data and media.
- Grow from one hive toward family, club, research, or commercial use without moving to an incompatible product.
Built for Real Beekeeping
The first target is a family or hobbyist beekeeper using phones, tablets, and computers. ApiaryLens begins with an offline-first Progressive Web App so field records remain usable when service is poor or absent.
Public Preview 1 supports two approachable server profiles:
- Family Cloud: synchronized records in the beekeeper's own Cloudflare account
- My Own Hardware or VM: the complete Docker Compose server on an ordinary Linux machine the beekeeper controls
Device-only personal use and expanded club, commercial, education, extension, and research workflows are post-MVP roadmap tracks. The portable core and export format keep those paths open without forcing a paid cloud, AI provider, or proprietary data format.
Current MVP Capability Areas
- Apiaries, hive locations, and hive history
- Boxes, frames, and other hive equipment
- Queens and queen history
- Inspections, notes, reminders, and follow-up work
- Private original photos and thumbnails
- Varroa counts, health observations, and treatments
- Feeding and consumption notes
- Manual weather snapshots; regional weather and bloom intelligence remain later
- Honey and wax harvests
- Sharing, reports, exports, and trends
The accepted MVP definition is the binding boundary. The Product Capability Overview and Roadmap distinguish implemented MVP capabilities from the broader product direction.
Open-Source and Self-Hosted Direction
ApiaryLens is an open-source, self-hosted-first product with an offline-capable PWA and portable data. The public product uses the OSI-approved Apache License 2.0. Release-candidate messaging distinguishes implemented capabilities from later roadmap direction.
The intended outcome is:
- No required paid cloud account for the core self-hosted product
- No required AI subscription
- No telemetry or data egress by default
- Local and Docker Compose deployment paths
- Guided installation, update, backup, restore, and diagnostics
- A measured free or predictably near-free family-cloud reference where practical
- A future optional hosted service without making self-hosting second-class
Future Direction
Later phases may include AI-assisted photo observations, inspection summaries, native iPhone and Android clients, hive scales and sensors, Home Assistant, bee-club workflows, research tools, and commercial-apiary capabilities.
AI will provide optional observations rather than final diagnoses. Native clients will connect to a beekeeper's chosen compatible deployment. Community galleries or registries may be considered when justified, but no plugin marketplace is committed.
Data Promise
Working message: Your bees. Your data. Your future.
ApiaryLens should help people care for bees, remember what happened, learn over time, and keep control of the records they create.
Visual Overview
The current marketing visual deliberately shows real family-scale beekeeping rather than a fictional finished application interface.
The structured capability map and current roadmap are maintained as Lucidchart diagrams and may be reused when detailed visual context is needed.
Shareable Handout
The following 4:5 Public Preview handout is designed for social posts, messaging, and email. It uses reviewed project language and directs people to the live public project and documentation home.
