More questions! Scouting the yard for location facing E or SE. Should they be partly shaded in the afternoon? It gets really hot in parts of the yard, but gets sun & reflected warmth in the winter (like now)? Can I use cinder blocks & pallets to set em on? Off to the library to clean em out of bee books! Thanks!
I have my hives partialy shaded. :)
No way, I live in Buckley too!!!! What a small world!!!
Yes, cinder blocks work great. I bought from the Home Depot in Bonney Lake cinder blocks and treated 4x4's to set on them. The hives sit on the two 4x4's. Keeps the hives off the wet ground and away from bad bugs. Mine are partly shaded in the afternoon (a cottonwood above it) but I'm planning on moving them to the middle of the pasture so they have more sun. The shade is nice to work in when wearing a bee suit, but the bees seem to work better when they have good sun all day.
Send me a PM here, I'd love to help you get started since we live in the same town!
Sean Kelly
in the PNW, full sun year around is great. on those rare hot days, the top can be wedged up a bit. our winters are worse than our summers, and in winter, those bees need all the sun on the hive that they can get.
If you use pallets and place more than one hive/pallet, when you inspect, you will be warning the second, third hive etc. you inspect you are coming. They feel the vibrations and stuff. This can make them testy some days. I put one hive per stand as a result. Not a big deal, just something to consider. I use bricks b/c i have apile of unused ones.
I use cinder blocks because they don't rot and I have them laying around.
My bees are in the sun by late morning and out of it by 6pm during the middle of summer. I wish they were in the sun first thing in the AM. I am moving them to a new location this year that should improve on that a little bit.
I have some hives that are partially shaded and some that are in full sun. The ones in the sun seem to produce sightly better;but not really much of a difference. My hives are on cement blocks placed on small concrete slabs. The slabs obviously keep the grass down and I can tell real quick if I have an ant problem.
Mine are in full hot sun from morning till late afternoon. They do not seem to mind. (we get into the 100's here)
But they really need a water source close by when it gets really hot. Mine is a pond about 250 yards away from the hives.
I have mine up on specially built tables (they are open in the middle to accommodate the screened bottom boards) that are around 18" off the ground. They can get a bit high when you start to add supers, but so far it hasn't been a problem for me, as I plan on extracting them soon as they fill them up.
Good luck
Annette
Full sun all day long is probably best unless you live in Death Valley.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfaqs.htm#locating
Poka-bee. There is so much information on this forum that has been posted over the long time. Sometimes it is easy to find threads that have all kinds of great and wonderful information in it. I have done a search and am resurrecting a thread that had lots of pictures of many of our forum friends bee yard photos and layouts. Look at the pictures in this thread. You will be amazed at what wonderful pictures have been taken and so many different ways of setting up your yard. Hope you find a really appropriate place for your apiary.
My apiary sits on a knoll on the back part of our 5 acres. This apiary gets sun from the moment it rises above the trees until late afternoon, say about 6:00 PM or so. We live in a temperate zone, we do not have the boiling hot temperatures that I know many of the more south beekeepers have.
It is important to have the apiary in as much sun as possible. This diminishes the amount of the pests that can inflict the colonies terribly. It does not rid the apiary of pests, but the sunshine helps. Bees love sunshine, they thrive in sunshine.
In my opinion, having the hives face towards the east, southeast, even if you will, will give them the full benefit of the early morning sun, as it shines upon their front of their colony. This is certainly not imperative at all. But I think it may give them a little bit of a benefit. I have read articles on research about earlier foraging colonies, if the sun shines on them and "awakens" their souls from the darkness of their home, this instills earlier foraging in the day.
So, when you have a moment or two (or maybe hundreds), take a look at this site that has so many beautiful apiaries that we have the privilege to see, beautiful pictures of our forum friends' work. Have an awesome day, Cindi
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php?topic=6865.0