Asking questions
Stinger answers from your records — the same data the colony detail screen shows — and tells you how old a reading is rather than passing old news off as current.
Your language. Stinger answers in the language you speak. Its own sentences — what it read back, what it asks you to confirm, what it could not do — are checked translations in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Turkish, and are worded for you on the spot in any other language. The app's screens — on the phone, the tablet and the web console — follow your phone's (or browser's) language when it is one of those six, and are in English otherwise; the language in Settings is the one Stinger speaks and listens for. Phone notifications (low stock, recording quota, tasks due) come in your app language too; after you change the language in Settings they switch the next time you open Stinger. The few hands-free phone commands — "Stinger mute", "Stinger listen", "take a picture" and the camera words — are spoken in English in every language for now; each one also has a button on screen.
- "What's the status of Bench 3?" — type, boxes, strength, brood (frames, capped brood, milk brood), mites, queen, queen cells and eggs (with how long ago), latest notes — and what follows from them, worked out by Stinger: whether a need for space was answered by a later box, whether a fed colony has been checked since, whether mites are rising or falling, and where a treatment course stands. A colony with nothing recorded yet is said plainly: "Bench 3 in North Yard — no inspection on record yet." Ask in your own language and the answer comes in it. If an answer leaves out the queen or the last inspection day, or gets a recorded fact wrong, Stinger reads the full status line instead.
- "When did I last treat Bench 1, and what did I use?"
- "How many deep boxes do I have in the warehouse?"
- "Do I have enough supers for the flow?"
- "What's the weather?" — the same forecast Stinger uses for its hot-weather treatment warning.
- "Work on Bench 1." / "Go to Bench 1." — Bench 1 becomes the colony you are working, and the screen stays where it is: "Now on Bench 1." If Bench 1 is in another apiary, Stinger moves you there too and says so: "Now on Bench 1, in North Yard." If two apiaries each have a Bench 1, it asks which. An apiary name works the same way: "Work on North Yard." — "Now working North Yard." You never have to say whether a name is a colony or an apiary.
- "Open Bench 1." / "Show me Bench 1." — opens that colony's screen.
A question never moves you. Asking about Bench 3 while you are working Bench 1 answers about Bench 3 and leaves you on Bench 1 — only "inspecting Bench 3" or "go to Bench 3" moves you. If your next words are an observation with no colony named, Stinger asks once rather than guessing: "Log that to Bench 3, the one you just asked about, or to Bench 1, where you are anchored?" Answer with the colony name, or in your own words and language — "the one I asked about", "where I am". Your answer moves you to that colony ("Now on Bench 3."). If Stinger cannot match what it heard to a colony it repeats the question with what it heard — "I heard 'And'. Log that to…" — and keeps listening; nothing is guessed from a fragment.
Questions are free-form — these are shapes, not magic words. If Stinger cannot find the name you said, it asks instead of guessing.
Asking about an apiary
Ask which colonies of an apiary are in a state and Stinger reads every colony's record and answers from it — nothing is written. Six states: queenless, weak, dead-outs, nucs, inspected today (or yesterday) and need space — the same words the bulk actions use. Name the apiary, or Stinger uses the one you are working in.
- "Which colonies are weak in Rodman?" — "Weak in Rodman: 2 colonies — 3C at 4 of 10 frames, 3 days ago; 4D at 2 of 5 frames, yesterday."
- "Any queenless ones in Rodman?" · "Which colonies need space here?" · "How many dead-outs in Rodman?" · "Which ones did I inspect today?"
- "Everyone in Rodman except the nucs?"
- "How many apiaries do I have?" — "You have 3 apiaries: Rodman (12 colonies), Homestead (6 colonies) and North Yard (4 colonies)." More than five lists the five largest and how many more.
- "How many colonies are in Rodman?" — no state word is the whole apiary: "Rodman has 12 active colonies — 5A, 5B, 5C, 5D and 6A, and 7 more."
- "How many are queenless?" — "Which apiary?" — "Rodman" — the bare name answers the question you asked: "Queenless in Rodman: 2 colonies — …" The same works after "More than one apiary matches" or "I don't know an apiary called…", and "And in Homestead?" carries the question to the next apiary.
- "How many colonies did I inspect today?" with no apiary named — "You inspected 6 colonies today — 4 in Rodman and 2 in Homestead." "…yesterday?" works the same way.
The answer speaks up to five names and the count; a longer list ends "and 4 more" and the full list is on the record. With a hive configuration set (Settings → Organization), "need space" names the box each colony needs next — "2C (a medium), 3 days ago; 3D (a deep)". Each reading carries how old it is; a dead-out or a nuc is a fact, not a reading, so it has no age. If nothing matches, Stinger says so with the count it looked at — "None of the 16 colonies in Rodman is queenless." An apiary Stinger does not know is refused by name, never guessed. A follow-up that names only a state — "the queenless ones" right after asking about Rodman — is answered for Rodman: Stinger keeps the apiary of your last question for half an hour.
How "need space" is decided. A colony needs space when you said so, or when its top box was full — and only if no box went on after that reading. Say on September 1 that a colony "may need space next inspection", add a box on September 15, and note on September 22 that "the last super is filling": the colony does not need space. The box answered the earlier reading, and a note is kept as dated context, never counted as a yes. Every answer works from dated readings this way, and an old reading is named with its age rather than dropped.