Found a site near me; advertised through our local bee group. An out Apiary 6 miles from home but in a rural setting. Not near OSR but loads of brambles, trees, river, and I can plant meadow flowers near the hives if I want. Good access and locked gate. Perfect! on 5 acres of land behind houses.
Just need to paint my 2nd Hive stand (still in plastic) and move a couple of hives over this coming week.
Probably Emerald as she is my eldest (putting her out to pasture so to speak) and if Crystal or Moonstone are laying can go as well.
@Dee It is a private house with good entrance, coded gate, in the middle of nowhere you would expect to find hives. I tend only to wear a veil these days and if I did wear my suit I’m able to do so from prying eyes - that was a big issue on my mind.
Can’t bee seen by any roads, river nearby, in a clearing - I can face the hives SSE and there is NOTHING but trees 30 m away in any direction.
The owner said he would strim a path if I wanted but I will use the fox trail.
Stand painting in progress - 2 coats to underside - Completed! It is Lilac - Masonry paint from my hives but the grass will hide most of it so will not be seen
I’m thinking of quartering a paving slab for the legs to go on. Our apiary uses bolts in the bottoms of the legs and puts them on pavers - I need to think on this
Hi Dee, is that a Honey Badger? I get cows knock the odd hive over. I get quite a few pushed out of place but fortunately not knocked over. We must be lucky here that we can work our bees without worrying about being seen in a bee suit. My main outyard is under lock & key. The only thing I saw one day was a few teenage boys looking for magic mushrooms:) They must have climbed the fence.
An outyard apiary is a fantastic asset to a beekeeper in my view. You can do a split & take it to the other site without worrying about bees returning to the old hive.
Hi Dee, wow that is a terrible shame. The same thing happens here to a degree. Native beehives sell for a good price over here. Would you believe that a native beehive got stolen from a local pre-school. The children were devastated.
Some nasty person took 2 frames from all our Nucs at the Group apiary a couple of weeks ago. Sad thing was they must have known the gate combination to get in. the person must have been a bee keeper who knew our site and the gate combo - which is even sadder, someone the group trusts
People see you coming and going in your suit will wise up there are bees - ie open to robbing - just better keeping away from main roads wearing the suit - it’s a shame we have to think like that but with theft of hives we need to take precautions. especially if the village is fairly isolated
I hear it is not much fun in California with the hives going to Almonds either - premium prices of pollination and some scrupulousness beeks are decimating other beeks hives to send bees to the front so to speak
It’s always beekeepers that steal bees…nobody else would have a clue what to do.
There was a lady in Anglesey (part of Wales…now not in the EU) that reported to the media that somebody crept into her beehives in the night and stole her queen bees (not the rest, just the queens) Press fell for it hook line and sinker…made a lot of proper beekeepers laugh for a while, that.
