The House
We take pleasure in a nook lot with a big (for Southern California), flat yard. The area behind the home is a rectangle roughly 85′ X 74′ with neighbors on two sides. The bee space is a 50′ lengthy by 15′ huge strip alongside our again fence stretched between two sheds. It additionally runs alongside our vegetable backyard with no boundaries between the 2 areas.
The Issues
So, why am I redoing this area? Let’s go over a few of the present apiary design’s issues.
Flight Path Drama
The beehives are lined up in a number of brief rows with 2-4 hives in every. Their entrances are all going through the identical route (in direction of the north shed), like chairs in a classroom. This retains the bee flight paths from going straight into the vegetable backyard, but it surely additionally signifies that their flight paths are simply disrupted throughout inspections.
The hives within the first row should fly across the hives which are in entrance of them. So, after I stand behind one hive, I block one other’s flight path. This setup is particularly problematic when I’m educating. All the additional our bodies stading within the area grow to be obstacles that confuse the bees as they attempt to discover their entrances. Only a few minutes into my beekeeping class, we now have created a chaotic aerial visitors jam!
No Boundaries
More often than not, the bees are tolerant of us, even after we work very near them within the backyard. Nonetheless, we do expertise defensive conduct from the occansional guard bee and I’m all the time on alert when I’m near the hives. Now that we now have a toddler, it’s extra nerve-racking. I consistently fear he’ll go into the bee space. We even have this drawback with company and canines that come to go to. Since there is no such thing as a clear division between the apiary and the remainder of the yard, new individuals and canines typically wander proper into the bee space. Some don’t even understand the bees are there!
Weed Meadow
To maintain the weeds down I partially lined the realm in low-cost astroturf. I do know this isn’t a very good resolution, however I had some available so I figured why not? After awhile, I bought sick of trying on the unnatural inexperienced and lined it with straw as a brief repair. Nonetheless, weeds nonetheless develop by it and trigger points with ants. Additionally, the astroturf has began to interrupt down from solar publicity and is now shedding horrible microplastics in every single place. I remorse utilizing it.
Aesthetics
To be frank, the apiary design is ugly. The best way the hives are organized appears messy and the bottom cowl is incomplete and ugly. We’re consistently battling weeds and within the spring, elements of the apiary are swallowed by them. It has gotten to the purpose the place I keep away from exhibiting anybody the apiary as a result of I’m embarassed by the way it loooks.
