The Apiary Ledger of Delaware

An illustrated register of Delaware's beekeepers and honey makers — their apiaries, varietals, awards, and services, county by county. Built as a nineteenth-century naturalist's plate book: every keeper is a numbered plate, plotted on a cozy isometric map of the state.

🐝 Live site: https://snyderb-de.github.io/de-bees/

What's inside

• The Register — every keeper, filterable by county and by what they offer (honey, comb, nucs & queens, classes, pollination, swarm removal).
• The Map — an isometric, tilt-shift survey of the apiaries; each hive box links to a keeper's plate.
• Swarms & Services — a county-organised swarm / cut-out register and pollination listings.
• Premiums — the honours roll from the State Fair and county shows.
• Learn — county clubs, registering your hive with the State Apiarist, and the Delaware nectar calendar.
• Get Listed — a free submission flow for any keeper in the state.

The keeper entries shipped at launch are illustrative samples; Delaware towns, counties, varietals, seasons, and the state figures are real. Swap src/lib/keepers.ts for real submissions as keepers join.

Design

• Palette — green-black printer's ink, sage, and oxblood on foxed paper, with honey used sparingly as gilt. (Deliberately off the cream + terracotta default.)
• Type — Fraunces (display), Newsreader (body), IBM Plex Mono (ledger data).
• Signature — a self-drawing engraved honeybee and the plate/figure register system. Motion respects prefers-reduced-motion.

Stack

• Next.js 16 (App Router) — static export (output: "export")
• React 19 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS v4
• Zero runtime data dependencies; the map and bee are hand-built inline SVG (no tiles, no API keys).

Develop

pnpm install
pnpm dev        # http://localhost:3000
pnpm build      # static export to ./out

Deploy

Pushing to main builds the static export and publishes it to GitHub Pages via .github/workflows/deploy.yml. The site is served from /de-bees, configured through basePath in next.config.ts (production only, so local dev stays at the root).

Roadmap

• Self-serve keeper accounts (claim & edit your own plate).
• Idle "roaming bee" cameo — an engraved bee that drifts in, lands, and buzzes off every so often.
• Reviews and "what's flowing now" live seasonal state.

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An independent project. Not affiliated with the Delaware Beekeepers Association or the Delaware Department of Agriculture.