Putting a hive entrance directly against an alternate board privacy fence

General Bee Chat
1

Has anyone put a hive entrance against an alternating board privacy fence?

I’m considering moving my (now vacant) hive to a sunnier location in the yard. I do not want the hive entrance facing the yard as A, that would be in the shade and B, I have lots of kids and pets running around in the close vicinity. The privacy fence is just a divider and I have more land in the back that is outside of the kids play area.

Could I:

  1. put the hive against a privacy fence and allow them to fly in and out through the vertical slats
  2. cut a cross-section out of the privacy fence to allow them clear line of sight into and out of the hive

Has anyone done this before? Any reason why it would be a terrible idea? In theory if I do this right the kids can see the bees through the observation window and we have easy access to the back of the hive while all of the traffic and activity would be flying out the back?

Thoughts?
JZ

2

If you watch some of @JeffH’s videos, you will see that several of his hives face directly up against a wall. Looks like they are only about one foot from the wall.

One of my hives is surrounded by a “flyover barrier” - a 6ft tall wire mesh fence with insect screen attached to it. The hive entrance is about 18 inches from the fence (facing it) and the bees have absolutely no problems with it.

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3

Hi JZ, you will have no problems whatsoever with what you’re proposing. As @Dawn_SD said, some of my hives entrances are only a foot away from the house. The hives sitting on my (not working) air conditioner:) are only inches away.

I believe that a good philosophy to adopt is to ask yourself “what do/would the bees do in the wild”. That has always been my philosophy. That explains why I never bothered with landing pads on the entrances right from the word go.

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4

JZ,
I put my hive against a trellis fence, I cut a slot out of the trellis (width of hive and 100mm high ) so the landing board could poke through, bees are happy as clams, very little “bee” action at the back /sides of hive, no need to put a wire fence around the hive, wife happy, dogs happy, bees happy
Jeff

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5

Hi Josh

My hive’s entrance is about a foot away, facing the solid fence. Like you, I did not want the bees’ flight path to be across my backyard.

So when they exit, they come up against the fence and have to fly straight up to about 8-10 feet high

It’s convenient also to work on the hives when facing the fence

Cheers

6

I have on several occasions put a hive facing a wall about a foot away from it. It gets the bees up sooner and solved traffic problems when the yard was small and I didn’t want the guard bees seeing passersby.

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7

Thanks everyone! This is very helpful!

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