I'm a newbee and I just finished my backyard apiary. My packages don't arrive until the first week of April but I wanted to share a picture of what I put together. I used free wood pallets to fence in an area that's 24'x24' and then laid down weed fabric over the existing grass, then 4 inches of crushed limestone. My reason for the rock is twofold: To keep grass from growing around the hives so I don’t have to mow by them and also because I hear the Small Hive Beetle larva crawls out of the hive to pupate in the ground. I’m hoping that they don’t find the rocks ideal to do this in and if they really want dirt, they’ll have to crawl at least 10 feet to find it. I also placed both hives in direct sun hoping that this will help too. Also in the picture you can see that I have two large Rubbermaid tubs full of water with rocks in them so the bees can land on them and walk down to the water. I also wanted to thank everyone on BeeSource who have given me such great advice. I’m so excited to be a beekeeper!
