Vertical take off?

[Erichalfbee]

Thank you all. I'm obviously way out here, so will have a rethink, I've got a while yet till 'bee-time'. I'll take a couple of wider pics, and annotate curly style with sun, direction, etc.
Would like to try the garden first, from a purely selfish voyueristic viewpoint. Fortunately I am 99% certain of a choice of out apiary areas near to me if this doesn't work. No doubt I'll be picking your fine brains nearer the time over those too.
mark

You could always keep just a nuc or two in the garden

 

[andrew_r]

You've given me a mental image of a cloud of bees circling above the hive in a holding pattern. Some skilled air traffic control required

It does feel like that sometimes, and then all of a sudden all calm is restored!
Andrew.

 

[drdrday]

I agree with Fiona and Pargyle, that it's great if you can have the bees in the garden. We also tend to start the day saying 'the bees are flying well today', or just go and stand beside them to get a whiff of the honey see what they're bringing in that day.
However, I'm lucky that my garden is terraced. The bees are at the top of the garden, with fruit trees, a shed and a greenhouse around them. This means no matter which direction they're foraging, they're always flying well above head height except for the last couple of feet immediately around the hives.
You definitely need more space than you might think behind and to the sides of the hives. By the time you've got your bag of bits, often a pile of supers, somewhere to place the boxes you take off etc. it can get a bit tight to work around.