Where you put your bees matters more than most beekeeping books admit. Apiary layout affects everything from drift and robbing behaviour to your own ability to work safely and efficiently across a full season. This category covers the practical decisions that shape a well-run apiary: site selection, hive positioning, access, and the kind of thinking that tends to separate beekeepers who struggle with recurring problems from those who don’t.
Some of it is about forage — understanding your local landscape well enough to know where the gaps are and when they occur. Some of it is about management efficiency: the layout choices that save you time and reduce mistakes across dozens of colonies. And some of it is about the longer view — planning an apiary that works not just this season but year after year, in a British climate that rarely cooperates.
If you are setting up for the first time, or reconsidering an established site, this is a good place to start.
There are many things in beekeeping which cause furious debate. One part of this, which this demonstrated below, is that different beekeepers deal with different environmental conditions. Here are some extracts from Interviews with Beekeepers on the subject of hive ventilation: Murray McGregor (Perthshire, Scotland) Steve: Another thing that crops up a lot, mainly between … Read more
Now and then something comes along which makes one’s life take off in unexpected directions. I was always a bookworm as a child, a sponge for theoretical knowledge, an academic. I hated woodwork and metalwork lessons at school and dropped them as soon as I could so that I was able to focus on science … Read more
This beekeeping malarky is not a simple matter of putting bees in a box and leaving them alone; far from it. A lot of work and cost, in both time and money, goes into ensuring that our bees are booming and healthy and productive. Always remember the saying, “If you look after your bees, they … Read more
I am back from my Californian adventure, which involved spending time with Ray Olivarez of Olivarez Honey Bees and Randy Oliver who runs the popular scientific beekeeping website and writes in the American Bee Journal. I learned a lot and added to the great material that I want to pass on in my forthcoming book. … Read more
Yeah, that’s right, I’m a big shot with two apiaries. None of that amateurish one apiary nonsense. My second apiary, which is in an orchard at Red House Farm in Dunham Massey, is only just getting going. It currently has just three colonies on it; two good sized hives and a nucleus hive (nuc). The … Read more