The Monk Stray Apiary: Back Garden Beekeeping.
The Monk Stray Apiary: January 2002
Our original two hives were placed in our back garden in 1997. To protect the bees and us fencing enclosed them.
1998
Challenge no1: Bees do not fly upwards unless they have to: They are
not that stupid. Most of the time they fly around at waist height around
the garden. I'm sure that you can imagine the problem! Gardening in mid-summer
became a ducking and diving exercise. The bees would accidentally crash
into us, (well dad mainly) and then start to get angry.
So in 2001 we increased the height of our enclosure with windbreak netting.
Now most of the bees fly up and off…. Except from the crafty ones
who have sussed out how to fly round the front at low level.
Windbreak netting forces the bees upwards
Challenge No2: Swarms. Concentrated efforts have to be put in place to control swarms. Even at the expense of the honey crop. Bee swarms are largely harmless and are indeed very spectacular. However it is one way to loose favour with your understanding neighbours. An interesting fact is that swarms have favourite settling places. Year after year swarms will settle in a favourite tree before moving on elsewhere. Why? No one knows, the swarms are different bees so it cannot be memory. The only thing we can think of is that they leave some form of scent marking.
Next doors apple tree: A favoured swarming spot.
We have tried bait hives (Empty tempting hives). However they just seem
to attract passing swarms from elsewhere. (B.T.W: To all the locals every
bee or swarm in the neighbourhood suddenly becomes yours even if you know
they aren't, and sometimes even if they aren't honeybees i.e. bumblebees)!
It is inevitable that an increase will be made. Which leads us to our
third challenge
Challenge No3: Moving bees: The fact is that you can only move a hive 3feet or 3 miles. (More than 3feet and the bees try to return to the old site). So to move a swarm box around the garden can take weeks. This coupled with the inevitable increase in the number of bees means that it is very difficult to have just the urban apiary. That is why we now have our second set of hives in a wood in Flaxton. Bees can be moved out there as it is more than three miles away. And then a few days later returned to wherever we want them.
Hive 3 (A swarm from 2001), is slowly moved across the
garden 3feet at a time
Today our urban apiary is home to five hives which the maximum that can really be coped with in a back garden. Our three main producers and two small colonies that we unite and move around as necessary. Our management now focuses on containment rather than expansion. Quite a new challenge!