Town or Country?

[kronkie]

I will hopefully getting 2 new colonies in the spring and wonder what the opinion is on where is best for honey production.
Town or Country???

 

[Poly Hive]

Depends on your countryside which is not much help but is accurate.

PH

 

[oliver90owner]

How about on the edge of town?

RAB

 

[MuswellMetro]

i expect you'll get 100 different answers, every beek likes his own set up l

but i like my site as it is on old fashioned hedged Horse pasture on edge of a Town, without OSR within 3 miles so you early spring meadow flower,brambles and garden flowers for the summer to fill the starvation gap you get on OSR

so light thin honey in spring ,darker honey in july about 4 to 5 boxes per hive

 

[peteinwilts]

Depends on your countryside which is not much help but is accurate.

PH

agreed... my countryside is smallish fields with very old hedgerows with the primary target flowers are primarily clover, wild mint, blackberries, hawthorne and blackthorne (with the other usual meadow and hedgerow species thrown in)

A few miles away, it is huge fields of monoculture, with rape, beans and peas. a very different landscape.

I have been buying Somerfords honey (I ran out! ), who keeps his bees no more than two or three miles from mine, and his honey is very dark, almost tea coloured, whilst mine is very pale, about the colour of white wine.

I have bought other local honey in the past, and his honey tastes very floral dues to the garden flowers they forage.

All have very different flavours, but both very nice in their own right, but does show the slightest different terrain can bring very different tastes and results.

 

[tonybloke]

another one of those divisive questions!!
I keep mine in town, with all of the trees and flowers of the neighbourhood,
not enough good forage in the country.
in this area, (well, my side of the river)
'my little pony' paddocks with not a wild flower in them,
wheat and barley crops for brewing,
acres of sugar beet,
cattle grazing on wet marsh

but, if you are near to the broads, plenty of hedgerow and waterside plants.
and there are always gardens, even in an arable landscape.

 

[arl]

Town or Country???

Why not try one in the Town and one in the Country and see how they compare.

 

[Poly Hive]

Ok here you are to ponder on.

Manley thought it took five seasons to accurately assess a site.

I very much agree.

Sites can surprise you.

Story.

Not a nice one but it goes to show.

I had bees organised to be on a farm for OSR. After it was over I wanted to move them to some spring OSR.

One bonny night I set sail and was moving some 40 odd which was planned to take some three trips.

Time was getting on and it was about 1am when I started.

I shut in the 2nd lot after getting back from the first run and thought hmm better shut the lot in as it was offering to crack the dawn.

I move them all and after some sleep went back to double check all was well.

8 not flying. Dread crept in.

Yep stone dead.

By reason of an unknown flow had started, the supers I had cleared down the bees to from the OSR some two days before had had nectar in them.

With the excitement of closure the heat made the combs droop, the nectar wet the bees and they went to the floor, ventilated floor, and then smothered as the bees carpeted the ventilation.

So.... be aware that just because you think nothing is going on you need to check.

Oh a happier note that site did me proud for some 5 years, took off tons of that honey, and never did find out where it was coming from. Bees flew off in 360 and as I say never did find it out.

So give the bees a chance to check out sites, and who knows it may be a lot better than you think.

My current OSR site has proven to be like that over the last three years. so is looking good so far. I can move the bees there and leave them for the summer.

PH

 

[hedgerow pete]

the town will will give you a better mixed honey and your bees like mine can forage almost all year round from flowers, wild and garden,

where as in the country the bees mainly feed from one source at a time, ie rape, beans etc

 

[grizzly]

The best tasting honey i have had to date came from a hive located on the edge of a housing estate, it was superb.

As some have suggested, get a few sites and try them out for a few years, i have a townie and a country, both are good and it helps the learning curve to compare different sites and how the colonies and honey differs.

 

[Silly Bee]

Lots of urban gardens have a huge range of flowers, sometimes more varied than countryside, sometimes they give a longer season.

So, bottom line.

Try them both, get 4 hives.

 

[Finman]

.
It depends what vegetation the area has and how much it allready has beehives.

If you have 100 hectars rape, it is only that during 2-3 weeks. They are long foraging flights over the cultivated fields.