The web app
app.StingerHQ.com — the same account, on a screen built for desk work: review the transcript, browse colonies and apiaries, tidy up records, manage reminders, check billing and members. Sign in with Apple, Google or email; the web always asks for a second factor, because a browser is a bigger door than a phone in your pocket. Click Approve in your Stinger app and tap Approve on your phone; Try another way takes a 6-digit code instead, or texts a code to your recovery number.
- Voice capture stays on the phone — on the web you type instead (see The console below).
- The web needs a connection; the phone is the offline-capable tool.
- Set up your second factor once, on your phone: tap Trust this device when Stinger offers it (or later under Account → Trust this device). Haven't yet? The web says Two-factor setup required: Nudge my phone brings the offer up on your phone. If no phone or tablet is signed in to your account yet, the web says so instead of offering the nudge. No phone app at hand? Text me a code instead adds a US or Canadian mobile number, and Stinger texts a code to it when you sign in. An authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy or any other) also works: scan the QR code it shows.
- Stinger runs on your phone. Whenever no phone or tablet is signed in to your account, the website shows this window when you open it. Send me an email emails you the steps to install the app if you are in the beta, or a link to join the beta if you are not. Dismiss takes you straight to the console. Crew you invited can use the console without the app.
- Setting up a brand-new operation on the web? You can, but its first apiary belongs on your phone, standing in the middle of the apiary — that is where Stinger pins it. The web offers Set Up First Apiary only after the server has confirmed your organization has no apiaries yet; if it does, choose Later.
- New phone? On the new phone open Account → Trust this device → Move codes to this phone. Confirm with a code from your old phone — or, if it is lost, a text to your recovery number. One phone holds your codes at a time; the old one says so next time it opens. Someone else using your login should be invited as crew instead.
- Add or change your recovery number any time on the Account screen. Sign-in texts go to US and Canadian numbers only.
The console
The web console shows the same transcript as the phone, and you can type into it. You do not need to pin an apiary first: Stinger asks for what a line is missing. A reminder is set straight away; "How many colonies are queenless?" gets "Which apiary?"; a line that names its colony is logged to that colony; an observation with no colony waits for you to say which one. With a colony open, a typed line goes to that colony and its apiary.
Your line appears in the transcript the moment you send it, before the reply. If it fails to send it is marked as failed — tap it to try again.
Hear what you said. A line you spoke on the phone shows a small play button beside its time, on the web and in the app. Tap it to hear that recording; tap again to stop. Typed lines and Stinger's replies have no recording, so they have no button.
Your log is yours. The transcript shows only what you said and what Stinger answered you. Owners and managers also get Crew Turns in Settings (web only): pick one crew member and see just the turns where they asked Stinger to do something, with the recording. Their other chatter is never shown to anyone else.
Settings
The billing time zone sets itself. If nobody has chosen one, Stinger takes the owner's phone (or browser) time zone the first time the owner opens the app, and tells the owner with a brief notice at the bottom of the screen (“Time zone set to … — change it in Settings.”) — nothing to confirm. A zone you choose in Settings → Organization is never changed. The time zone picker there lists every time zone in the world: type a city, a region or an offset such as -03:00 to find yours; your phone’s own zone is at the top. Without a connection it shows a short list of the common US zones. Changing the time zone re-dates every colony's days on the new local calendar; in a large operation that takes a moment.
Settings → Organization is the same screen on the web and the phone. Beside the billing time zone it holds the organization's thresholds — the numbers behind Stinger's judgments, each with a default shown greyed and a Reset:
- Weak colony — frames of bees as a share of the box, 40 % by default (4 of 10; 2 of a 5-frame nuc). "Treat every weak colony in Rodman" uses it, and the read-back names each colony's frames and box.
- Mite alert — a wash count above this earns the treatment warning; 3 by default.
- Stale reading — a read-back adds the date to a reading older than this; 7 days by default.
- Feed check — a colony you fed shows "Fed 14 days ago — not checked since" once its last feeding is this many days old and nobody has looked at it since; 14 days by default (3 to 60). A feeder that is simply in the hive never warns — many operations keep frame feeders in all year.
Two colony warnings watch the feed, not the feeder. Fed, not checked follows the Feed check number above; any later visit to that colony clears it. Every record about the colony counts as a visit — an inspection, a treatment, a note, and every equipment change (adding a super or an excluder, removing the feeder, setting up equipment), whether at one colony or for a whole apiary at once, in the field or from the office. A top-up starts the count again. Fed with honey supers on is the stronger one: syrup fed while the hive carries more boxes than your hive configuration's base can be stored as honey, so the colony shows "Fed with honey supers on — syrup can end up in the honey" until the supers come off (supers that come off and go back on later are clean). Without a hive configuration Stinger cannot tell a super from a brood box, so that warning stays off. When you log a feeding on such a hive, Stinger's spoken confirmation adds the same heads-up — "Heads up, 4A has honey supers on."
Below the thresholds sits the hive configuration — how your organization runs its hives: the base (deep or medium boxes, and how many — "two deeps") and the super type stacked above it (mediums, shallows or deeps). Stinger uses it two ways. "Add a super to every colony in Rodman" puts the right box on each hive without asking — a hive still short of its base gets a base box, a complete hive gets your super type — and the read-back names what went on ("Added a super to 16 colonies in Rodman — 15 mediums and 1 deep."). And "Which colonies need space?" names the box each one needs. A spoken type always wins ("added a medium super"). Until you set it, Stinger asks "Which box — a deep, a medium, or a shallow?" every time.
Below that sits the measurement system — US customary (the default) or metric. It sets the units Stinger speaks and shows: the heat warning's temperature, the apiary radius (spoken, on the slider, on the map) and distances. Say a radius in feet or meters either way — "Create apiary Workshop with a 100 foot radius" in a metric organization is stored as 30 meters and read back as "30 meters". The records keep their units; only the words change.
Owners and operations managers can change them; every change is recorded with who made it. A threshold is applied when a question is asked, so changing one never rewrites a record.