I am a new urban beekeeper. Our beehive is in our back yard. The bees come and go - flying across our yard and up over our fence to their destination. Their flights go unnoticed by our neighbors, and mostly don't bother us.
However at certain times - the backyard air is thick with flying bees - and it can be a little intimidating - especially for visitors.
Our yard is small, and I am thinking about putting up a 6' high screen around the hive. The idea is to force the bees to fly straight up when they leave the hive, so their flight path is overhead and out of the way.
Have you heard of other people doing this? Does a screen close to the hive bother the bees?
I put up 6' vinyl lattice around my bees, it's about 2' from the hives, they go nearly straight up and away and come in like dive bombers over the top of it, no problems. Just make sure your access/entrance is not right in the flight path of the hives! :)
Most time in the afternoon when the bees are taking their play flight,"orientation" flight they will fill the air.doak
My hive sits right on the other side of my 6' stockade fence that encloses my bee yard and it works great - the bees fly up and are over all of our heads as we sit by the pool some 25 feet away.
I think you see orientation flights which wont be stopped by a fence. Even w/o fences, the bees fly high to avoid arial predation. Harder to catch'em w/o background to see them against. Yes it is intimidating, but they will dimisish in numbers soon and you will miss them. Enjoy while you can, your hive is growing and thats one of the signs.