Hive placement: how to choose the best backyard spot

Inside: Hive placement can be tricky. You need to keep everyone happy, including you, your neighbors, and your bees.

Even before your first colony arrives, you have a critical decision to make: Where will you put your hive? It’s a tough choice. And it’s not made easier by all the rumors and myths that go along with it. So let’s separate what’s important and what’s not.

Worry about people and pets before bees

Nothing is more resilient than a honey bee. Honey bees adapt easily to many situations, unlike people and their pets.

Unfortunately, most new beekeepers worry about the bees more than they worry about their families or neighbors. Don’t do that. The last thing you want is complaints about your bees, fines, or lawsuits. It’s fairly easy to set up your hives correctly but difficult to fix trashed relationships. So let’s consider some practical matters.

Honey bees are free spirits

Honey bees have minds of their own. Sometimes, you cannot convince them of anything. Instead, they will go wherever they want, whenever they want, and do anything they want.

As beekeepers, we can only “suggest” behaviors. We give them boxes to live in, frames to nest in, and supers for storing honey. If we’re lucky, they play along. But just remember, they make the final decisions, and sometimes those choices are not especially helpful. 

Learning to keep your colonies in line is part of becoming a beekeeper. Once you know what honey bees want and need, you can supply those things and they will usually behave. As I said, they are extremely adaptable.

Place hives so you can work from the back

Lots of people want to set their hives against a house, barn, or shed. It’s a tempting location because a building offers lots of protection for your bees. Tucked under an eave, a hive receives less rain, snow, and wind. Plus, if the building is heated—as is your home—the bees benefit from that, too.

The problem is beekeeper access. It’s best to tend your hives from the back, especially if you are new. The bees will use their front entrance, so working bees from the back of the hive keeps you clear of their flight path.

It’s possible to work them from the side, but it’s more difficult than you may think. It’s hard to reach across the hive to the other side, and if your hive backs against a building, you cannot get your varroa drawer in and out without altering the hive configuration.

Stay away from doors and open windows

Also, you shouldn’t put a hive close to a door or a window that opens. Even if the bees don’t bother you, they may bother family members, guests, delivery drivers, and mail carriers. Remember, too, that the bees’ direction of flight may change as forage plants go in and out of bloom.

And it’s not just your house. You don’t want to put a hive close to swing sets, sandboxes, horse paddocks, swimming pools, dog runs, sidewalks, trails, parks, bus stops, bicycle lanes, or shopping areas. This may seem like common sense, but when I’ve evaluated disputes between private citizens and beekeepers, more often than not I thought the beekeeper could have been more discreet.

By keeping your bees as far as possible from people, pets, and livestock, you will have a better beekeeping experience.

Things that can go awry

Yes, a surprising number of people worry about living near a beehive. A lot of them are truly wary of bees, so you need to cut them some slack. Perhaps they’ve read of people dying from “killer bees” or being hospitalized for anaphylaxis. 

These situations are tough, but an entitled beekeeper can make them worse. Many of the disputes I’ve seen didn’t involve stings at all, but merely the thoughtless placement of hives.

I’ve seen beekeepers place their hives next to a fence with the entrance facing the neighbor’s house. The neighbors may think you’re protecting yourself by putting them in danger. Or a beekeeper may place a hive near a fence that’s 50 feet from his own house and just 20 feet from the neighbor’s house. The neighbor may read this as arrogant, thoughtless, or provocative. This is no way to start a new hobby.

Think of those affected by your bees

Too often, I’ve heard beekeepers say something stupid like, “It’s my property so I’ll put the hive wherever I want!” Yes, I get it. If it’s your property, perhaps you can put your hive anywhere you want (assuming you follow any setback requirements). But as a beekeeper, you don’t want that kind of relationship with a neighbor. Trust me on this.

For example, if your best colony swarms and lands in your neighbor’s apple tree, you’ll want permission to go fetch it. If you’ve been a horse’s backside from the beginning, you’re going to lose those bees, probably to a spray of pesticide. So don’t go there.

Put your hives in a place that works for everyone. Give the neighbors honey, candles, and the benefit of the doubt. As eager as you are to make everything perfect for your bees, it pays to be kinder than necessary to the neighbors.

Even gentle bees have nasty spells

The temperament of a colony can fluctuate throughout the year. Bees that are gentle when the nectar is flowing can get nasty and defensive when the flowers dry up. This is normal, and those uptight bees will usually calm down again when the fall nectar flow begins.

Shifting dispositions offer another good reason to keep hives away from people. If we set the hives away from foot traffic, slight changes in disposition may go unnoticed.

Consider where your bees will drink and defecate

These two items cause most neighbor problems. People don’t want bees crawling all over their pool decks, and they don’t want gleaming globs of bee poop on their lawn chairs and picnic tables.

Most beekeepers never consider these two problems until after they happen. And, unfortunately, it’s difficult to potty train a hive of bees.

As for water, it’s best to provide a water source before your bees arrive. They will choose water close to the hive if you provide it. But if you don’t, they will go further afield and perhaps use a local pool. Once they’ve selected a source, however, it’s nearly impossible to break the habit. So remember one thing: water before bees.

As for poop, the further away the hive is from your neighbors, the better. The bees will defecate soon after they leave the hive, so the extra distance is a plus. Also, as you get further from a hive, the bees are more spread out, making the number of yellow spots seem less. See “How the inverse square law governs the distribution of bee poop” for an explanation. 

Disregard myths about hive placement

There are legions of rules about hive placement that are not at all critical. For example, your hives don’t need to be in direct sun, the entrance doesn’t need to face southeast, and its elevation doesn’t matter.

These rules can help if every teaspoon of honey is vital. But for the backyard beekeeper, it’s better to raise healthy bees in a way that appeases your family and your neighbors. Many of the hive placement rules come from commercial beekeepers who need to maximize profits. They need to keep the bees working from sunup to sundown in order to make the mortgage and the car payment.

But those rules have little to do with healthy, happy bees. When bees select their own homes in the wild, they usually pick shaded areas near the edge of a forest. The entrances are wherever they are, and the brood nest may be in the ground or 40 feet in the air. It’s easy to get confused between what they want and what we want.

Careful placement of your hives and consideration for others will go a long way to making beekeeping an exciting and rewarding hobby for years to come.

Rusty
Honey Bee Suite

Spring is coming: Don’t forget to plant some lovage for your bees!