Show me the honey.

[BigAshW]

It doesn't sound like it's the beekeeping that has beaten you, just the location you're beekeeping in.

Can you move your hives elsewhere? I can't imagine trying to keep bees on an allotment - surrounded by keen gardeners regularly spending hours so close to my hives - it's less than ideal! You're always going to get the odd guard or follower bee that is determined to see off a nearby threat and that will never end well with people around your bees that don't understand what the bees are doing.

My bees are in my back garden, albeit out of the way of the areas of the garden that we use the most and on the topmost terrace. I'm always aware that I may have to move them if they start to become a nuisance to neighbours.

It would be sad if you gave up just because you hadn't found the right site yet.

Oddly enough we've moved hives away from an allotment site this year and the plot holders are all asking us to bring them back.

Our apiary there which is now being re-established has green netting around it to a height of six feet and other than one occasion when a hive turned nasty and I had to move them away and requeen. (They were absolutely horrid) the bees have left everyone alone.

The reason I moved away was that I had a new site and i was more worried opening hives with people around than they were it seems.

The plan is to only raise nucs and mate queen's there in the future as they tend to be calmer, (in theory).