Hives in the woods????

[4hillspoultry]

Hi everyone. I have a 1 acre lot, half is wooded. In the woods I have a 60' x 40' fenced in lot for my chickens. I have a nice clear patch next to it I want to put my bees next year but I've noticed all the hives I see are in a field. Will the bees do OK in the woods? They will have a clear path straight up through the trees. Where I want to put the hive is about 100' from the edge of my yard.

What do you think?  :?

[BjornBee]

Comparing hives in shade and sun, sun hive will out produce, be healthier, and fend off disease and pests better.

[Stlnifr]

How much sun light and at what time of the day is sunlight the most important for the bees to be healthier? Morning midday or afternoon. Where I stay I have a power line right of way that has sun most of the day but not early in the morning nor late in the afternoon. Wood this be satisfactory? I have searched my property for a spot that would give early morning but none available.

[AllenF]

Most of my hives are in the woods.   The shade makes working them a little easier.  I really can not tell the difference with SHB between shade or full sun hives.

[Joelel]

We are where it gets real hot and we place our hives so they are in the shade in the after noon heat about 1-4 pm. This helps them keep cool and not have to carry as much water.If in the sun,their hives warm up faster and frees them up from having to keep brood warm and they get to work forageing earlier. In other words,help them to be productive as much as possable and they will all around do better.
 Many things like this we have figured out ourselves from watching our bees morning ,noon and evening. We intend to be the best bee keepers anywhere.

[BjornBee]

Joelel, is right on the mark.

Hives in full sun, work earlier in the morning, later in the day. They work earlier in the spring and later in the fall.

I have had hives in the same apiary that on one side, they were shaded. And on the other end, they had full morning sun. Those in the sun had their morning dew burn off faster and become more active much faster. This may not mean much in the heat of the summer. But for a good part of spring and fall, this extra production can really add up.

We did v-mite sampling between shade and sun for years as inspectors in Pennsylvania. And across the board, hives in shade had higher v-mite counts, higher spring secondary stress diseases such as chalk and sacbrood, among other things.

When you realize that full sun, or at least giving them as much sun as possible for your property, then bees are healthier, then it really just comes down to working hives earlier in the day or at time when it is not 95 degrees.

And that winter sun, really can be the difference in survival. Hives in Sun during winter may really benefit from the heat produced, allowing bees a short flight that bees in the shade may not be able to take.

[iddee]

Allenf must have SHB problems with all hives. My shade hives were inundated with SHB. As soon as they were placed in the sun, the SHB left.

PS. If the hives are IN the chicken lot, the chickens will eat the wax moths and not bother the bees, nor vice-versa. The chickens MAY eat SHb, too.

[Culley]

Don't know what it's like where you are, but here in the subtropics I wouldn't want to put a hive in the forest because of the dampness, wood rot, etc. We have 'white ants', termites that chew dead wood, plus all sorts of fungi in the forest.

[BjornBee]

One of the things new beekeepers need to understand is that many older copies of bee books were written prior to the introduction of t-mites, v-mites, SHB, etc. Ans some books are simply in reprint with older advice. And I suppose some books just skip this issue.

Years ago, bee books were generally written by older beekeepers, who at that time, passed on the wisdom of not putting your beehives in the sun, especially when there was no reason too (Or they thought). Nobody wanted to work hives in the afternoon sun if they didn't need too.

Today, there is no real debate...get the hives in full sun! If they need some extra ventilation in the heat of the summer, then provide upper entrances or crack the lid.

Bees actually do not prefer or willingly except hives or swarm traps in full sun. So their own "programming" is lacking natures advantages. But that is because we have thrown disease and pests at them at a rate that would never happen naturally..or even possible.

If you have options on hive location, besides the obvious of getting to the hives, etc.,....select for sun first, wind second. You can correct wind with buffers and temporary fences. But you can't do anything about sunlight.

Best location for beehives.....full sun!

[edward]

If you can find a spot that i elevated and in sun , more fun for the bees .
Cold air sinks so if they are elevated they will start work earlier in the morning.

Last year i had a hive in a dip in the terrain  , :evil:   :thunder:  :evil: more evil b¤$t¤rds are hard to find.
This year I pulled them out of the dip and into the sun light , What a delight :rainbowflower: Kind an gentle bees with out changing the Queen , they just didn't like being in the shade .

Good luck  ;)

[Michael Bush]

http://bushfarms.com/beesfaqs.htm#locating

[indypartridge]

Best location for beehives.....full sun!

Yes, for all the very good reasons noted in the above posts. 
BUT... I live in the woods and so do my bees. Yes, they'd probably be more productive if they were a half-mile away at the edge of the horse pasture, but I like seeing them out my back window. I like coming home from work, getting out of the car and smelling the thick scent of ripening goldenrod honey. I like wandering over to watch the bees while I've got dinner burning on the back porch grill. Maybe I'd get an additional 20 lbs of honey per hive if they were in a better location, but I'm not out to maximize production, I'm maximizing my enjoyment instead.

[tecumseh]

the first advice from very dated bee books (like abc-xyz) was a 'well drained' site with hive entrances situated in a southward direction (south, southeast, southwest).  this advice may be dated, but it is still well worth considering.  dampness and pointing entrances in a non southern direction can be somewhat to highly associated with nosema.

if beekeepers around you report large problems with the small hive beetle I would suggest you minimize shade and any location where organic material might accumulate. 

one of my locations where I have almost no small hive beetle problem is a rock face outcropping. 

[stefanysz]

 How much area do bees need?  Can they thrive in  a one acre wild field  surrounded by woods?

[David McLeod]

Oh yes they will do just fine on that one acre. You could even put 50 to 60 thousand bees there and they would do just fine.
Seriously, a hive will send out foragers in a radius measured in miles to bring in nectar and pollen. Of course to closer the nectar source the more round trips per day equals more honey. The biggest factor in stocking rates whether it be bees or cows is the quality of the pasture.

[Bee-Bop]

How much area do bees need?  Can they thrive in  a one acre wild field  surrounded by woods?

I believe the feeding area of bees is a range of from 12,000 to 36,000 acres.
Sorry they probably won't even notice your 1 acre site.

Bee-Bop

[rdy-b]

  I use this link to figure forage zones for my locations- 8-) RDY-B
http://bees.morkland.org/coverage/

[David McLeod]

Thanks for the link.

[Acebird]

We had our bees in the woods but not far.  They still got sun but they didn't do as well as where they are now.  They get sun in the morning and the afternoon and still are shaded in the evening.  However we are not in south Carolina.  I don't know how much difference that makes.