Advice on plans for 2013

[WesternWilson]

Because my neighbour may still try to get the powers that be to prohibit hives in our neighbourhood back yard, I searched around for outyard space, and was successful.

Because I figure not all those offers will, for one reason or another, work out, I will likely put bees on 4 or 5 of the locations, two hives each.

Now, I am pretty green at all this and so have a question for you all:

What hints, tips, advice, cautions or wisdom do you have on the topic of expanding your apiary???

Regards,
Janet

[bendriftin]

my advice is just move the bees at night and preferably in a pickup. After you arrive at your destination just sit and relax for a while. Give them a little bit to calm down. happy beekeeping

[Bsweet]

Get it on paper.
1. Terms if any
2. Liability, yours and his
3. Access or tresspass agreement
4. Apiary size? how many hives can you have?

Don't know about way up north but down here in the lower 48 you would be exempt (in most places) if you had bees before the law/ordanance passed

Good luck. Jim

[Tom B]

I have 11 hives on 8 outyards this year, and will expand to 18 hives on 12 outyards next year. I have never had to seek outyard locations as I have people seeking me out. I treat my outyard property owners with a generous portion of the honey from their hive, keep the hive and surrounding area looking pristine (no junk left lying around, hive boxes in good repair and all painted the same color), and involve them in the initial hive siting. I also make sure that they know that if they ever decide they don't want a hive on their land anymore, I will have it removed within 24 hours (I have never had to do this). In general, I find that people are interested in honeybees and honeybee colony behavior, they enjoy "micro-local" honey from their own property, but are just not interested in being beekeepers themselves.

[Mbeck]

I would keep 4 at each location. Having resources from just two hive isn't always enough.

[Mike Gillmore]

I'll second Mbeck's suggestion. Increase the number of hives at each site and cut your locations in half. You can spend more time with the bees rather than wasting time holding the steering wheel between apiaries. If a location is not productive with more than 2 colonies then it's time to find a new spot for them. Have some extra space cleared and ready for additional hives at each site. It will come in handy for spits or those swarms that seem to hit you all at once in the spring.

[waynesgarden]

My advice is to plan your hive increase and have all equipment ready going into Spring. Since I make all my woodenware from scrap pine boards, I've spent far too much time in the shop cutting and assembling boxes, screened bottom boards and covers during time I should have been out working bees (or working in the garden.)

I'm currently winterizing the shop so I can get work done longer into Winter and earlier in Spring and have no excuse to be caught without available equipment when I catch that swarm or find hives crying out to be split. My goal is to be stocked well in advance and not spend a minute of daylight in the shop next season.

The D-Coates 5-frame plywood nucs (plans available on Beesource) are invaluable to me, for using as swarm traps, for moving frames of bees or frames with queen-cells from one yard to another, and of course, as nucs. Try to always have some of these around. I've made dozens of them from scrap plywood. They're simple to build and if you don't have the tools or scrap plywood handy, almost any basement carpenter could knock a few of these out for you in no time.

There are lots of other things to mention, but key to my expansion plans is to increase making July nucs and raising my own queens.

Oh, and make sure those 4 or 5 yards are not too far apart. The traveling gets old fast. I'm thinking of dropping my farthest yard because it is 18 miles past the next to last and I can only keep 10 hives there. It's in a good yielding area and I'll keep it if I can find a place for another yard nearby.

Wayne

[Charlie B]

I have six yards in the Bay Area with a minimum of four hives per yard. They are all close to freeway exits so I can get all the hives inspected in one day with plenty of resources in each yard. I don't have anything in writing but the property owners are all good friends of mine so I don't think it's necessary.

I don't think I'd put hives on someones property I didn't know without a written agreement.

[Charlie B]

The nice thing about spreading out your yards a bit is that you can catch year round flows (in California anyway) if you plan right.