I am part of a team that runs the Bee Culture website. I am the primary person to add new content and do minor updates while another person runs our ads. We both work in WordPress. We also work closely with an independent company for technical issues, i.e. slow run times, web pages not loading, etc.
This version of the website was created in 2015 and has had many hands on it ever since. Knowing this, my team and I have been trying to improve as much as we can. This includes removing unnecessary plug-ins to make certain features work, adding new plug-ins to add more needed features, and removing and/or organizing old posts to improve our content.
Main Archive Page
One of the biggest additions that I added to the website is a digitized version of all of our issues from 2015 to current. I revamped our digital magazine with the February 2022 issue to include all sorts of interactive features. These features included clickable links, embedded audio, a working table of contents, and a brand-new flipbook system.
After the positive feedback of this revamp, I worked to get the back issues up to the same standard and posted them on the website. Since that project was completed, I have been adding all the individual articles from these issues to create better access to individual articles if someone wants one.
In the process of creating these new digitized versions, I worked to clean up the InDesign documents that had many errors and missing content. I then was able to package them and create a working archive of these documents for future use.
We have created a page to download PDFs of issues from 2014 and prior. We do not have any plans to put them into flipbooks given how dated they are to current times. On that page, I have coded the columns for each year so that they correctly go into their columns but also so the columns stack when on a phone screen. This wasn't something the native Column tool in Wordpress could accomplish.
To learn more about the work behind a new digital issue Click Here.
Issues per Year Page
Individual Issue Page with Embedded Flipbook
Since I started, I have added many new features to the website. Below are a few prominent features:
- Monthly Honey Price Report
Previously only available in the locked digital issues. All of the tables are coded into the page using the HTML editor in Wordpress.
- Audio Articles
This project was started in late 2022 with three authors. We asked them to record themselves reading their article. That audio accompanies their article on our website. We have had great feedback and have since expanded this to include more authors.
- Calendar of Events
Previously, the events calendar could only be found in the magazine which was locked under a digital subscription.
- Best Books Resource
We have many individuals who come to us asking for recommendations for additional content they can get to learn more about beekeeping. I worked with the Editor to create this easy list that covers all levels of beekeeping.
Previously only available in the locked digital issues. All of the tables are coded into the page using the HTML editor in Wordpress.
- Audio Articles
This project was started in late 2022 with three authors. We asked them to record themselves reading their article. That audio accompanies their article on our website. We have had great feedback and have since expanded this to include more authors.
- Calendar of Events
Previously, the events calendar could only be found in the magazine which was locked under a digital subscription.
- Best Books Resource
We have many individuals who come to us asking for recommendations for additional content they can get to learn more about beekeeping. I worked with the Editor to create this easy list that covers all levels of beekeeping.
Monthly Honey Price Report
Audio Article
Collection Audio Articles
Calendar of Events
