how many?

[Docking]

My property is located in an area where it is about 50% wooded and 50% pasture land. About 1.5 miles one way I have a neighbor that has 2 hives. The other direction about 2 mioles there are 15 hives scattered about. My property is mostly a cutover so there will quite a bit of blackberry there. My question is... How many hives can I place on my property before they start being less productive? Do bees work cudzoo? If so, I have about 2 acres of that there.

[sqkcrk]

My property is located in an area where it is about 50% wooded and 50% pasture land. About 1.5 miles one way I have a neighbor that has 2 hives. The other direction about 2 mioles there are 15 hives scattered about. My property is mostly a cutover so there will quite a bit of blackberry there. My question is... How many hives can I place on my property before they start being less productive? Do bees work cudzoo? If so, I have about 2 acres of that there.

The only real way to find out is to establish an apiary and increase the numbers every year until you notice a decrease in production. And then you won't really know, because it could have been due to the weather.

I have apiaries of differing sizes, depending on whether the hives are on warehouse pallets or 4-way pallets and thenaccording to what number of colonies I wish to have to work before moving on to the next yard. That's when I take my breaks.

I know other beekeepers, in this area, who have 60 or 80 colonies in each yard. I also know beekeepers who complain about other beekeepers dropping those big yards right down on top of them. They think that that is the cause of their poor production and then later in the year they brag about how much honey they got off of that same yard. I theorize that if the nectar is there we'll all get it and if it isn't we wont.

As far as closeness of yards is concerned, I'd be more concerned about disease transfer. But that's just me.

In some states, the Dakotas I believe, apiary distances are regulated.

[Mathispollenators]

I think you can place 4 to start depending mainly on how much forage they have and how many bees you have. But i would start with maybe 4 and increase accrodingly. Make sure you place some there because the honey we made pollenating some blackberry fields was top grade. As far as the kudzu don't know intrested to find out. Like sqkcrk says according to the forage we load up a beeyard sometimes with lots of pallets. I have somewhere close to 100 on the blackberry patch 50 to 100 acres here in diffrent spots around the field. Two miles apart is plenty of seperation room for the hives.

[gun4hire]

Yes--the way I understand it here in South Dakota..a registered apiary can't be within 3 miles of another....kinda sucks where I live..I see one listed less than 3 miles from my house but I have NEVER seen any hives there