Beekeepers: Enough of standing annoyed at the hive and cleaning propolis off your phone?
There is a secret weapon that lets you document the condition of your bee colony quickly and easily, without honey and propolis on your phone or the stock card:
The PSK
Over 300 beekeepers already appreciate their advantages.
✅All relevant criteria are found on a clear card.
✅By moving the pins, you record the current condition of each hive.
✅Create history: After working on the beehive, you can photograph the PSKs. Thanks to the specified hive number and the digital timestamp from your smartphone, these are easy to assign.
Beekeeping without sticky fingers rarely succeeds.
As exciting as looking into your bee colony is, there’s always that frustration over sticky stock cards and propolis on your phone.
So constantly: gloves off - make entries - gloves back on.
You know this approach is time-consuming and inefficient.
What if propolis or honey on your hands no longer ruins your mood in the future?
When documenting with the PSK, you don’t even have to take off your gloves. You simply move the pins to the right spot, with or without sticky fingers.
With the PSK you also document:
✅Clear
At a glance, you understand the recorded condition and get a direct comparison to the improvement or deterioration of the last documentation when you move the pins.
✅Time-saving
No more constantly taking gloves off and putting them back on! Plus, you only need to move the pins when there are changes and can leave the rest in place. This way, you usually document 6x faster and can use the saved time for yourself.
✅Thorough
Capture all relevant criteria. These have been coordinated nationwide with numerous beekeepers so you can relax and enjoy your evening knowing you have recorded all important information.
Out of necessity: The invention of the PSK
The usual options—whether on paper, in a book, via app, or Excel spreadsheet—did not satisfy us. At the apiary, our phone and paper got sticky or wet, or at home on the PC, we had already forgotten half the data. Frustrating!
Some well-known beekeepers had developed systems to document outside the hive, e.g., with chalk or grass bunches.
We thought: THIS CAN BE DONE BETTER
Who are we? Marco and Christoph from near Trier, friends and business partners.
Our idea was to develop a suitable scale that represents the most commonly used criteria.
For this, we based ourselves on common stock cards and conducted surveys with numerous beekeepers and beekeeping associations in Germany.
Next, we tested different materials to find a durable, weather-resistant, animal-proof (keyword ants) material and UV-resistant paint. Rigid foam proved to be the perfect material.
It took 5 iterations with gradual improvements until the PSK finally met our standards. Since then, we document stress-free and faster than ever before.
We want to offer you thishuge time savingsas well. Benefit from the PSK too!
Another big advantage compared to conventional options:
✅ Document easily in any weather
The PSK is suitable for any weather—unlike traditional documentation on paper or phone.
Your stock cards scatter across the entire rapeseed field in windy weather?
The PSK cannot blow away.
A sudden rain shower soaks your stock card and your entries run?
The PSK is rainproof and even cleans itself through rain.
The sun is shining. You have set your phone to the highest brightness level, yet the screen still glares and you can't see anything?
The PSK is easy to read and UV-resistant for up to 4 years.
We receive enthusiastic messages daily from beekeepers who use our PSK and finally document efficiently and clearly.
Finally document efficiently!
Our story begins long before the first honeycomb
A teacher and a master carpenter have been close friends for over 25 years. They met through their wives, who were already friends in kindergarten. From this connection, a friendship developed that still forms the foundation of PSK Beekeeping today. When Marco took over beekeeping from his father Hanni, a new passion began for him – and at the same time a big annoyance. He was immediately fascinated by working with the bees, but documenting the colonies was tedious and impractical. Paper hive books got wet, stuck together, or disappeared somewhere between hives and tools. And the smartphone? Hardly usable with fingers stuck together with propolis. Many methods were tried: paper cards, spreadsheets, apps – but no solution ever felt quite right. Marco was looking for a system that works quickly, reliably, and directly at the hive without constantly having to reach for the phone. That’s how an idea was born: a form of documentation as simple as a glance at the colony itself. This is where Christoph came into play. With his craftsmanship perspective and Marco’s beekeeping experience, the two began tinkering – first with simple materials, many experiments, and even more discussions. From these attempts, the foundation was finally developed for something that many beekeepers use today: the PSK.
The first trade fair and the step into the digital world
The first PSKs were initially an experiment. Marco and Christoph tested materials, improved the scales, and tried out new variants again and again. But at some point, they wanted to know: Does the idea also work outside their own apiary? The answer was to come at a trade fair. At EuroBee in Friedrichshafen, they presented the PSK to a larger audience for the first time. For the two founders, this was a special moment because suddenly experienced beekeepers stood before them, took the cards in their hands, asked questions, and tried the system themselves. Many visitors understood the idea immediately. They took the pins, looked at the scales, and said, "That actually makes total sense." The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and confirmed Marco and Christoph in their assumption: The PSK solves a real problem in beekeeping. At the same time, a new idea emerged at this fair. Many beekeepers found the analog system excellent but also wished for a way to store the data digitally and analyze it long-term. This led to the next major development step. A third man joined the team: Tim, a computer scientist from Göttingen. He developed an app that can automatically recognize the position of the pins on the card. With a simple photo, the PSK can be scanned, and the app transfers the information directly into a digital history. This created the system that defines PSK Beekeeping today: a robust analog documentation directly at the apiary and intelligent digital analysis in the background.
New ideas about beekeeping
More than just a single product gradually developed from the PSK. Around the work at the beehive, new ideas kept emerging, many inspired by direct exchange with the beekeeper community. A special project is “Beekeeper – The Game”, a board game for the whole family. In it, two to four players manage their own beehive through a complete beekeeping year. It involves decisions, events, and typical challenges from beekeeping – presented playfully and with a lot of humor. The game quickly became a popular product for beekeepers and everyone interested in bees.
Another project is the Beekeeper Advent Calendar. The idea behind it was a calendar that not only contains small surprises but truly useful and creative products for the beehive. That’s why the calendar was designed with multiple layers, so larger items can also fit inside – from tools to accessories to special small gift ideas for beekeepers. During the development of this advent calendar, a new product line also emerged: the Holy series. Originally, a special scented smoke material for the smoker was developed, which provides pleasant, aromatic smoke blends. The idea was so well received that it became an independent brand, which is now being further developed independently of the advent calendar.
Alongside these product ideas, interest in the PSK itself also grew. More and more beekeepers from other countries discovered the system. Therefore, the card was gradually translated into more and more languages and offered internationally. Today, it is available in more than ten languages and is used in many countries across Europe and beyond. What started as a small idea at the home beehive has thus gradually developed into a growing range of products around modern and practical beekeeping.
