Screen How Close?

[Cussword]

I've heard that a screen/fence in front of the hive entrance encourages the bees to fly up to avoid them flying at head height. What would the best distance from the hive? I mean is there a maximum- minimum?
Thanks.

 

[madasafish]

I have see a hive work with the entrance 2 meters away from a 2 meter high fence...

 

[itma]

The principal practicality is about avoiding shading the hive and entrance.

Netting or trellis about a yard away is probably a reasonable minimum.
You'd likely prefer a bit more 'beekeeper space' than that in at least one direction though.
Maximum? How big is your available space?

 

[Cussword]

I could have it 3 yards away, that would probably be my maximum for it to remain unseen, although I have plenty of room behind.

Thanks Chaps.

 

[Davelin]

3 yds will be fine. I would say 6ft min, but they can adapt very quickly to VTOL.

 

[Eyeman]

I've had ours with entrances facing the side of our greenhouse. They are only 10" away from the glass and have been there for 10+ years. Yes they do come down vertically, but that keeps them well above head height.
Alec

 

[Roola]

I have some bees in a church yard with a 7ft netted enclosure around them. The hive entrances are about a foot from the netting and they have no problems coming or going and has them flying straight up and away.

 

[midnight sun]

One of mine is about 18 inches from a 7 ft fence and it has no effect. There seems to be some theory that they need a 'runway' to take off and land, they don't! Watch them on their 'maiden' orientation flights. They hover and fly off no problem. Where these notions of set trajectories come from I have no idea!

 

[richardbees]

The bees will cope ....but make sure YOU have enough space to manipulate the hives.

 

[alldigging]

What posts and mesh do you use?

We have scaff debris netting available.

 

[Roola]

What posts and mesh do you use?

We have scaff debris netting available.

That will work fine! I bought some garden shade netting from Homebase which is very similar to debris netting... As long as it is fairly rigiet allows some light d to stand up to wind gusts yet lets some light through then you should be fine. Post wise I just dug holes and used pressure treated timber

 

[itma]

Took me a while to find the LASI paper I remembered on this topic.

They found that trellis (14cm sq openings) was as effective as their (artificial) 'hedge'.
They put their 6ft high barriers (standard garden planning/bylaws/etc) 1 metre in front of their hives.

Anyway, if anyone is interested ... http://www.ibra.org.uk/downloads/20140221_5/download