Varroa surveillance · your data, handled honestly
How we handle your data
If you contribute a mite-wash record, you’re trusting us with information about your bees — and where they are. Here’s exactly what we collect, why, who can see it, and how to have it removed. We keep this plain, because trust is the whole point.
Your exact apiary location is never published and never shared with anyone outside BeesFriend — including authorities. Published findings only ever show regional patterns.
What we collect
When you submit a mite-wash record, the tool asks for some information every time, and some only if you choose to share it.
Collected on every submission:
- Your mite-wash data — wash counts, bee numbers, brood status, any treatment you’ve applied or are checking. This is the actual purpose of the tool.
- Your apiary’s GPS location. Your device or browser can capture this automatically with your permission. We ask for it so your data lands in the correct region even if a place name is mistyped — accurate placement is what makes the regional picture reliable. It is anonymised for analysis and never published at an individual level.
- An identifier (such as a BeeMAX ID, operator code, or email). We use this only to recognise repeat submissions from the same person, so your records can be tracked over time and not double-counted.
- A colony code of your own choosing, so you can tell your own hives apart across submissions.
Only if you choose to share it:
- Your name, phone or email — only if you opt in to be contacted for follow-up or quality checks.
- An apiary code, or a breeder name if relevant.
Who can see it
The raw submissions — including GPS locations and any contact details — are held in a KoboToolbox account controlled by BeesFriend. For now, BeesFriend is the only party with access to the raw data. We do not sell it, and we do not share individual records with anyone, including government authorities.
What we publish is different from what we collect. Published findings are always aggregate and anonymised — regional trends and patterns across many beekeepers. We never publish, display, or map an individual apiary, an exact location, or anything that could identify you. Where too few records exist to report something without risking identification, we hold it back rather than show it.
About KoboToolbox. The data is stored on KoboToolbox, the platform we use to run the form. Under their terms, KoboToolbox acts only as a data processor on our instructions — BeesFriend is the data controller, and KoboToolbox does not access or use your submissions for its own purposes. You can read their privacy policy for how the platform itself handles data. For anything to do with your contribution — including removal — contact us, not KoboToolbox.
This is separate from official reporting
This is important. Detecting Varroa is a notifiable matter, and reporting it to your state authority is required by law. This tool does not report on your behalf, and it is not a government system. Submitting a record here does not satisfy your legal reporting obligation — you still need to report detections through the official channel.
Equally, the reverse is true: contributing here is not a back door for authorities to find you. We don’t pass your individual data to government. Use this tool for monitoring and to help the community; report detections officially, yourself, through the proper channel.
Your choices and your control
- You choose to take part. Contributing is voluntary, submission by submission.
- You can have your data removed. If you’d like your submissions deleted from our records, just ask — we’ll remove them.
- You can ask what we hold about you, and how it’s been used.
- Contact details are opt-in. If you don’t want to be contacted, you don’t have to share name, phone or email.
To request removal, ask a question, or raise a concern about your data, get in touch.
In short
We collect your wash data, your apiary’s location, and an identifier so we can build an honest regional picture of Varroa and treatment performance. We keep the raw data private to BeesFriend, publish only anonymised regional findings, never share your individual data, and remove it on request. Reporting Varroa officially remains your responsibility — this tool sits alongside that, never in place of it.