[paul.h]

Just talked to a business man about leasing one or two acres of land to place an apairy on. What he and I need to know is what is a fair year to year price for land. We would not build any structures on the leased land.

Thanks

 

[Beeslave]

Is this a place just to set the hives, produce honey, splits, overwinter, etc? If so how many hives will you place there? If not what are your plans with the 1-2 acres?

 

[peacekeeperapiaries]

How many hives are you planning? What is in the area for the bees to forage on? Are you pollinating a crop for this person? Will YOU benefit from paying this landowner after taking into account all you expenses? In my experience I do not lease land for beeyards, I don't know any other beeks that do either. There are plenty of landowners out there who let us beeks place bees on their property and in return I always provide them some honey.

 

[paul.h]

We are strictly hobby beekeepers. Will probably just have around 10 hives. I cannot keep bees at my location and I know no one who would let me keep bees on any property. They would be no benefit to the landowner. The business owner is interested but needs to know pricing. He knows it would not be a lot of money. His firm owns a lot of property.

 

[Beeslave]

10 hives-Less than 40 sq.ft.-Give him 4 qt jars of honey at the end of the season. That would be around $1.00 a sq.ft. of land rental and is way better pricing than he would get as crop rental per sq.ft. . I had 25 yds with 30-40 hives in each spot. This year was a bad crop and I gave 4 qts. to each yard owner. 50% of those people thought I was giving them to much but I made them take it anyway and told them to give away what they thought they wouldn't use. Nobody complained about not getting enough and all wanted me back this year.

 

[CentralPAguy]

We are strictly hobby beekeepers. Will probably just have around 10 hives. I cannot keep bees at my location and I know no one who would let me keep bees on any property.

I would scout the area for farms and knock on doors. I did that and got a Beeyard and then got two more Beeyards out of that location directly.

This fall, I knocked on three doors that had open land and two of them said yes. Of course, I had a jar of honey in my hand just to sweeten the pot along with a business card that I created on my PC.

They ask me about the setup and I tell them directly that I give a 1 pound jar of honey for each hive that they let me keep. Even though, several of my locations didn't make honey as I put them on at the end of the Honey Flow, I was glad to give them the honey as the payoff will come with this year's nectar flow.

I would have sworn that the third place would have said yes as they had a big sign in their front window - "stating No Farm, No Food" - I think it was a protest against a big Walmart development. I should have pointed out to him that No Bees, No Food.

Good Luck and seriously start knocking. You won't regret it once the first person says yes. I even think that someone on beesource put an ad on Craigslist and got multiple locations out of that ad.

 

[waynesgarden]

I agree you should exhaust all possibilities before signing a lease.

Try placing a "Bee yard wanted" ad on your local Craigslist in the farm and garden section. I was about to do that when a local business person who knew I had bees asked if I could put some hives on her property to help pollinate her garden and little home orchard. That took care of my expansion needs for next year.

If you have a organic farming organization as we do in Maine (MOFGA,) see if an ad in a newsletter would be possible. (A free bee yard on spray-free land would be my dream come true.)

Signs at feed stores or food co-ops night draw a response.

Best of luck.

Wayne

 

[StevenG]

Check also with your county extension agent, or a local state university extension office. Most county seats have such. See if you can find information on who has clover or alfalfa or such. I had a man ecstatic to have my bees on his pasture clover. Helps pollination, he gets more clover, I get more honey. I don't charge him, he doesn't charge me... but I do give him honey. Everybody wins! :thumbsup:

 

[ChrisApiary]

Paul,I am as new as it gets to beekeeping but my experience has been somewhat different. I seem to not have enough bees to go around as some of the locals find out about my new endeavours. In the past couple months I have had multiple requests from people for bees on their property. From a buddy that wants to improve his garden to my insurance agent who saw a receipt for package bees hanging out of my checkbook. The conversation turned to ( if you have any extra hives, what would it take to have you put some on my property).I have to go with StevenG and say knock on some doors, I think you might BEE surprised! Best of luck and happy keeping..
Chris