A common question comes our way every month. This question is “how many hives can I have on my property”.
Your first stop should be to check your sub-division covenants and your local municipality laws for any rules regarding honey bee hives. Yes, some municipalities have laws to govern bee hives. It is highly important to research this first. We hear from dozens of potential beekeepers, each season, that purchase all the beekeeping supplies and honey bees and find out they cannot have bee hives on their property.
Generally speaking, most backyard beekeepers have 1 to 2 acres of land with 2 or 3 bee hives. I have personally had 10 hives on a 1 acre lot in a subdivision. One important thing to do is talk with your neighbors first. I did speak with all of my neighbors to get their verbal approval to have these hives placed in my backyard.
If you or a neighbor has a swimming pool, you can still have bee hives but it is going to take work in keeping good relations with your neighbor. Most pools use either chlorine or salt water to keep their pools healthy. Unfortunately, honey bees love chlorine and salt water. The honey bees will gravitate to the pool to drink the water.
So how do you keep your bees from going to the neighbor’s pool? What I did was just ask my neighbor to text me the day before letting me know they plan on using their pool the next day. That evening or early the next morning, I would go out and slide the entry gate over the entry way, to trap the bees in the hive during the next day when my neighbor was having a pool party.
Another way is to use a hive net and cinch it around the hive. This will allow the colony to go out of the hive but contained on those hot days in August.
The common denominator is you will have to go out when it is dark and contain the bees. You may even have to use your smoker in chasing the bees that are camped outside of the hives to go back into the hive. If you wait til day light, the foraging bees will already be out doing their duty in collecting nectar.
When the pool party is over, I just went out and pulled the gate and allowed the bees to forage. I was able to keep my neighbor across the street happy and she was a big advocate of me raising bees.
It should be noted that containing bees within the hive for many days during the nectar flow will reduce the nectar that is collected. The end result will be lower honey production.
On a 5 acre lot I have about 75 hives. If you go greater than 75 hives you will see the honey bees competing for the same nectar source and will reduce your honey yields per hive. This is a lot of bees and I highly recommend placing this apiary in the countryside where no homes are within .5 miles.
Always remember to talk with your neighbors because they can be an advocate or a real pain in your side. You will be amazed at how welcoming your neighbors will be because their backyard garden will get pollinated.
