Google Earth

Use a landmark you know as a guide on the map and guesstimate. Your bees won't be flying 3 miles to forage anyways. You want to concentrate on what is within 1 1/2 miles from the hives. That is where most of their honey will come from.

Here is a link to the google map to where you can view your area by satalite! Might not tell ya much but it will give you an area to look at! It took me right to my drive way and even seen my jeep under the carport...hahaha

http://maps.google.com/

Where I live there is a "mile line" road every mile, so it's not hard to measure...

Cool, it even says Squeak Creek Apiaries right on the map when you zoom in on my road. But they need to update their images. The garden is occupied. I wonder how often they do update the satellite image? 6 wks? 2 mnths?

sqkcrk said:

I wonder how often they do update the satellite image? 6 wks? 2 mnths?

Click to expand...

My location shows corn fields where I've had horse pasture for 5 years.

There is a ruler icon at 11:00 on the Google Earth screen. you can use it to determine as-the-crow-flies distances in feet/miles/km.

Amazing tool...

good luck!

Enter you coordinates or address here: http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm , it is a great tool.

Most of Google Earth is really arial photos when you zoom in close enough to recognize landmarks, roads, buildings etc. Near the bottom left of the view screen is a date and source of the photo. Many areas are 3-6 years old. Most are from USDA Farm service photos.

You can go down to almost any small airport and hire someone to fly you around for about $50 an hour. My father is a pilot and often uses his small plane to scout yards and locate other beekeepers that are encroaching. It works really well to take a plat book or county atlas with you and make marks as your flying.

sqkcrk said:

Cool, it even says Squeak Creek Apiaries right on the map when you zoom in on my road. But they need to update their images. The garden is occupied. I wonder how often they do update the satellite image? 6 wks? 2 mnths?

Click to expand...

Over the years I have kept track on when my areas pictures were updated... Works out to about 1.5 years on average... Longest I have seen is 2 years...

I figure it's a way to keep the terrorist one step behind,,,,

Don't worry about what is out there to feed your bees those girls are pretty smart, they will find food when the time is right. Concentrate on the immediate area where your hive(s) will be. Especially a water source.

Minnepchyolka, great tool you posted, thanks

There is a circle generator tool for Google earth. you can set the miles of you're circle. I did it last year, but don't remember the specifics.
Its a third party tool, I found it with a google search.