How far should the hive be from foot traffic?

[Sundance]

I'm a backyard keeper in the suburbs.  Thanks!

[JP]

For a while you can probably do whatever you want to around your bees. At some point a hive can get huge and perhaps even defensive. This must be considered when placing them near your house, loved ones and neighbors.

If its a permanent set up, I would suggest keeping flight paths away from people.


...JP

[tlynn]

Bees will have a predominant path of flight to and from your hives based on their location and surrounding obstacles like trees.  I have a fairly small back yard and am surrounded by neighbors.  Although my hives are less than 10 feet from my office window, with a stepping stone path through the back yard between the hives and the house, the bees have a flight path that takes them up from the hives and over the house, heading south.  The hive fronts face east, and there is a wall of bamboo to their east, and trees to the north.  So they just head up into the blue and disperse over my front yard, which is preferable to going over the neighbors of course.  I can walk my path and not get hit by bees.  So if they don't have obstacles to traverse close by they may stay low before going up and cause collisions with people.  So take a good look at your area and envision access based on where you would place them.  With that said you want to place in as sunny a location as possible.  Sunny is best practice for small hive beetle (SHB) control, which I believe you have in your state.

Tracy

[Michael Bush]

Make sure you have a wall or a fence that forces the bees up over peoples heads.  If you do that it doesn't really matter how close. Some towns have ordinances stating how close you can be to the property line.