Dear John,
I enjoyed your website. Lots of info, but one thing I did not see unless I just missed it, was Placement of a hive, and I need your advice on this.
I live in a rural area, on a dead end street. houses lined down the street on both sides, but the houses are not awful close to each other.
I have a one acre lot. Actually, I should say my property is about 1/2 an acre wide, and one acre long.
Now I have two other places I can put my bees, at my dads house or my sisters house. They have huge yards and plenty of land.
I would rather keep them here, but my delimma I caused for myslf is this: Would it be ok to keep a hive towards the back of my property? Its wooded, and there is a clearing where I keep my garden, I have been planning on putting my bees on one end of my garden.
Will my neighbors cause any problems?? they neighbor on one side of me mows about every other weekend, and thats the extent of his noise. The neighbor on the other side of me has a young boy who rides a dirt bike often. Now would I be pushing it on trying to keep my bees close to me??????
I need your advice as soon as you can help me, my bees are getting here tomorrow.
ALSO, I was planning on building a 3 foot high table of some sort to set the hive on. Any problem you can see with this???
I appreciate your time, and help.
Chris
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Chris:
The amount of property sounds great - I keep mine right on the property line 10ft from the neighbors cars, they mow weekly right up to the rear of the hive and I have a deal, they give me a days notice and I close the entrace at the end of the previous evenings flight. When they are done, I remove the block at the door and all is as normal.
Make sure your table is durable - a 2 story hive hive can weigh over 300 pounds.
Try to keep them out of the total shaded areas if possible, they need sun in the entrance to get them out early in the morning, and mildew issues can also be a problem as well as an increase of ant invasions.
The bees leave the hive - fly up to 30ft and go about their business - I don't see a problem with mowing or dirtbikes more than 50 feet way under any case. I don't have a clue off hand WHERE you live, but honeybees are interested in foraging not neighbor assult.
Make sure they know WHERE the hives are and explain even give them a tour of the setup once done - you will be much better off if they are fully involved, never try to hide beehives from the neighbors - it makes you look like the bad guy and that's a nasty way to start a beeyard.
I'm going to post this in the beekeeping forum click this link to get other members from around the worlds imput: http://www.beemaster.com/beebbs/viewtopic.php?p=1325#1325 - check ack several days, this has been a hot topic lately and PLEASE NOT - you can ask questions and make replies at that location. 70 members from around the world might give you additional ideas
JohnMembers THIS HAS BEEN A HOT TOPIC, please add some additional imput.