How many hives could I put on an 450 acre farm.

[Finman]

..
...It can be done ( I would not give up the day job, and as Finnie, my little snowpixie chum says... keep your wife in work!)

Yeghes da

Thanks to nobody, that we do not have in Finland snowpixies. IT is totally English innovation.

And Cheers, what need you have to blaa blaa blaa people when you have nothing to say?
.

 

[Ian123]

Look at Beebase.....
You think you have all corners covered...
And then after a couple of years you will find the odd colony on the periphery of "your" site.... even bait hives!!!
Unknown unregistered beekeeper.... bringing in GNW disease... and GNW in the way of bees!

Just hope it is not Doctor Death!!!!

Chons da

I bet your good fun at parties

 

[Curly green fingers]

I didn't think of beebase . Such banta! I missed that post .

 

[Jimmy]

That sounds like a small mortgage . If I said that to my friend I think she would have a heart attack. I think we are more interested in having amms . Slowly building stock up . I don't want to run before I can walk . But I'm most deffo interested in starting with 20 hives split into 4 apairys spread over the farm .
I've finance's to go big but I need to see how many hives the farm will support and that means starting small and building it up .

Michael Collier is not that far away, I *think* he favours Amm. I'm also fairly sure he uses AI.

With only 5 hives per apiary you'll spend more time suiting up, lighting the smoker and moving between apiaries than actually inspecting. I'm familiar with the Herefordshire-Worcestershire -Shropshire area around Tenbury Wells which I guess is nearby. I'd be surprised if 5 was the optimal hive number per apiary. Lots of mixed farming, good hedgerows, rivers and streams have Himalayan balsam.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Michael Collier is not that far away, I *think* he favours Amm. I'm also fairly sure he uses AI.

Michael runs courses to teach instrumental insemination.

He sells a lot of queens to bee farmers and his favorite mix was Carni and Buckfast.

 

[Jimmy]

Michael runs courses to teach instrumental insemination.

He sells a lot of queens to bee farmers and his favorite mix was Carni and Buckfast.

Thanks, I'd assumed he was Amm/native bee as the first i heard of him was through a positive review of a visit on Peter Edwards website.

 

[Popparand]

Dont forget if your hives are around the boundary of the farm the bees will forage over all the land adjacent. They don't just go hunting over a 180 degree sector!

 

[Curly green fingers]

Michael Collier is not that far away, I *think* he favours Amm. I'm also fairly sure he uses AI.

With only 5 hives per apiary you'll spend more time suiting up, lighting the smoker and moving between apiaries than actually inspecting. I'm familiar with the Herefordshire-Worcestershire -Shropshire area around Tenbury Wells which I guess is nearby. I'd be surprised if 5 was the optimal hive number per apiary. Lots of mixed farming, good hedgerows, rivers and streams have Himalayan balsam.

I'll be meeting Michael in November as he is coming to lBKA , Ludlow beekeepers.
I'm going to be learning about AI if you look on my thread about drone rearing .
Michael is going to supply amms as our buckfast and carnia are having new queen's in the spring and I'm hopefully going to see the progress of the behaviour etc.
Cheers mark.
Sent from my 5051X using Tapatalk

 

[user 6228]

depends more on the hedges if any. Miles of good, big, thick, diverse hedges that are not shorn every quarter will make the difference

 

[wightbees]

Things never go to plan but when it does its great. I would say time is your biggest factor and using it wisely is a must. I made a small jump in size only last year and its totally different to a dozen colonies. Then it was the worst winter in my history, I lost over 30% it was heart breaking after all I put in to it But i was determined to make it work and this year has gone very well.
Basically it's not black and white, there's lot of things you can do differently, it can be a lot of fun too.

 

[Curly green fingers]

On the thoughts of how many I'm sure we could have more and it might well be we invest in more 20 was a starting point.

 

[enrico]

Curly, I have sent you a pm
E

 

[Hivemaker.]

Thanks, I'd assumed he was Amm/native bee as the first i heard of him was through a positive review of a visit on Peter Edwards website.

I don't know anything about that.

When I was at his place putting in cells and catching queens for sale, non of them were Amm, he was using Carni - Buckfast combinations, I also sent him ten queens at a later date.

Maybe he has recently changed to more Amm, not sure all his previous customers would of though.

 

[Jimmy]

I don't know anything about that.

When I was at his place putting in cells and catching queens for sale, non of them were Amm, he was using Carni - Buckfast combinations, I also sent him ten queens at a later date.

Maybe he has recently changed to more Amm, not sure all his previous customers would of though.

I think it was the Peter Edwards connection that made me think Amm rather than anything in the article itself.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I think it was the Peter Edwards connection that made me think Amm rather than anything in the article itself.

He did spend a few days at Sussex uni inseminating Amm queens for Prof Ratnieks a while back.

 

[Curly green fingers]

He did spend a few days at Sussex uni inseminating Amm queens for Prof Ratnieks a while back.

I believe he has a apairy in the black mountians where he has amms so our secutary was telling me at our last meeting.

Sent from my 5051X using Tapatalk

 

[enrico]

I believe he has a apairy in the black mountians where he has amms so our secutary was telling me at our last meeting.

Sent from my 5051X using Tapatalk

Can you check your messages curly

 

[Curly green fingers]

I got it Enrico I had no notification though , I won't be doing anything until next year and then it might be a case of raising new queens I've lots to think about thanks for the offer

 

[Jambo]

Basically, they are covering 3 square miles ish.

That's a smaller number than I've seen quoted elsewhere PH, where does it come from? Or do you mean 3 miles square?

 

[enrico]

I got it Enrico I had no notification though , I won't be doing anything until next year and then it might be a case of raising new queens I've lots to think about thanks for the offer

No problem, thanks!
E