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How close to a house?

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  • 20-05-2020 10:18pm
    #1
    SouthWesterly
    Registered Users Posts: 6,456 ✭✭✭


    Looking at doing a course next year and getting hives. How close to a house could they be kept.
    I've 4 acres of field but get hay cut so don't want them in the way of farm machinery.

    TIA


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    #2
    GreyEagle
    Closed Accounts Posts: 318 ✭✭GreyEagle


    The Bee Manual by Claire and Adrian Waring has plenty of good advice on beekeeping including where to site your hives. It would also be a good prep before you start your course. Happy beekeeping!


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    #3
    Flipperdipper
    Registered Users Posts: 180 ✭✭Flipperdipper


    I've a hive 10 metres from the back door and no problems.


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    #4
    victor8600
    Registered Users Posts: 1,607 ✭✭✭victor8600


    Flipperdipper wrote: »
    I've a hive 10 metres from the back door and no problems.

    This should be a good distance. Unless you get overly aggressive bees. I am re-queening a colony at the moment which was completely nice last year, but superseded in September and now they guard the hive at 5 m and follow for more than 15 m. Even though they do not sting often at all during the inspection, this guarding/following behaviour is completely unacceptable. So the current queen got her head chopped and hopefully in 5-6 weeks the behaviour of this colony improves with the new queen.

    Another thing to consider is the flight path from hives out. Even a nice bee will sting if she gets entangled in your hair. So putting some kind of screen shielding the hives from human traffic would force bees go up over people's heads.


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    #5
    copper12
    Registered Users Posts: 680 ✭✭✭copper12


    I agree with Victor
    You have no guarantee that the bee will be calm or become aggressive at a later stage
    I have had to move two hives that were calm last year
    I killed both queens they made new queen mated but one is being superseded
    However they are still very aggressive it will take a couple of week to determine
    This has worked
    There would be a corner of each field that would be suitable
    Face the entrance south for the winter sun


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    #6
    Danzy
    Registered Users Posts: 13,247 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    SouthWesterly wrote: »
    Looking at doing a course next year and getting hives. How close to a house could they be kept.
    I've 4 acres of field but get hay cut so don't want them in the way of farm machinery.

    TIA

    Put it on the headland, machinery won't cut their regardless. I have several hives on the flat roof, I've several more 18 feet from the back door.



    You can always lift them , force them to fly up, have them face a ditch 6 feet away or some barrier

    Don't site them in a cold low dark corner where frost will collect in winter.


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    #7
    Danzy
    Registered Users Posts: 13,247 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    victor8600 wrote: »
    This should be a good distance. Unless you get overly aggressive bees. I am re-queening a colony at the moment which was completely nice last year, but superseded in September and now they guard the hive at 5 m and follow for more than 15 m. Even though they do not sting often at all during the inspection, this guarding/following behaviour is completely unacceptable. So the current queen got her head chopped and hopefully in 5-6 weeks the behaviour of this colony improves with the new queen.

    Another thing to consider is the flight path from hives out. Even a nice bee will sting if she gets entangled in your hair. So putting some kind of screen shielding the hives from human traffic would force bees go up over people's heads.

    I had a colony like that, massively productive but it came to I was reluctant to go to them, facing a wall of bees before the cover came off. All my other hives are very quite, some lively but fine. I took put the queen and let them raise one, a lot quieter now hopefully the productivity will be there as well still.


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