Moving to a new house in a neighborhood soon... Advice?

[JConnolly]

I live in a similar neighborhood.  There are five bee keepers that I know of within three blocks.  I know of two others within a half mile away.  I'm positive there are many more I don't know about within a half mile radius.  I see no reason to think your neighborhood will be significantly different.  Just keep your apiary neat, appropriately sized, and from being an eyesore and chances are good you won't have any complaints.

I wouldn't stick the hives right in the middle of the yard as you sketched though.  The bees are going to use 25 to 30 feet to get up to altitude, making the core of the yard unusable to you.  I'd put them to one side and make them fly up over a barrier or vegetation so that they are above your head and you can use your yard.

[gilligan]

I live in a similar neighborhood.  There are five bee keepers that I know of within three blocks.  I know of two others within a half mile away.  I'm positive there are many more I don't know about within a half mile radius.  I see no reason to think your neighborhood will be significantly different.  Just keep your apiary neat, appropriately sized, and from being an eyesore and chances are good you won't have any complaints.

I wouldn't stick the hives right in the middle of the yard as you sketched though.  The bees are going to use 25 to 30 feet to get up to altitude, making the core of the yard unusable to you.  I'd put them to one side and make them fly up over a barrier or vegetation so that they are above your head and you can use your yard.

I could face them towards the fence like I do at my mother's place (the fence is on the back side of a local small dive bar though)... they seem to spiral up and out and away when they leave there.

[Kathyp]

I could face them towards the fence like I do at my mother's place

good plan.

[Kathyp]

I think i'd also put them on that fence to the left if you can.  that way they are not shooting over the trampoline i see in that pic.

[gilligan]

Good catch... I'll have to see if that is still there, that is a fairly old image.

[JConnolly]

I think i'd also put them on that fence to the left if you can.  that way they are not shooting over the trampoline i see in that pic.

Agreed.  It looks like there is a tree at the fence line in that corner to the left.  That tree can function as a barrier encouraging them to fly up before heading over that neighbors yard.

My hives face my garden with a fence about 25' away to the east.  On the other side of the fence is two cherry trees.  I've observed that the foragers usually fly off to the east and fly up and over the cherry trees.  That happens to be the neighbor that I think would be most likely to complain, but they haven't because the bees are up too high for them to notice by the time they overfly that yard.

[rogersparky]

I have a six foot privacy fence that directs the bees up and keep a fountain that the bees absolutely love.  So, living within two blocks of city hall, police, fire, sheriff, and county offices, no one has complained.  You would not believe the early suburban honey flows.  I have four hives in town, and they do better than my hives out in the county.  If I'm not splitting them early, they do so well I have trouble controlling swarms.  I do keep them lower to the ground so they don't show over the fence when I add a second super.

[Colobee]

Not sure I would use any of these statements...misleading and not really true and the last thing we need is more misinformation about bees. If you ever do swarm captures how do you justify the wild bee statements....you have just shot yourself in the foot if you have these statements out there and then install a captured swarm even though we all know "wild bees" aren't necessarily untamed.

I don't know where your bees come from, but mine have been bred like livestock for almost 100 years. I requeen swarms with the same. I am in the process of switching to Ferguson Buckfast because I'm seeing some less than desirable testiness from the southern providers.
 
Here's a sample of the old advertising for Buckfast breeding:
 
During a two year test of six stocks of bees at the University of Minnesota, the Buckfast ranked:
Nosema in Queens - none
Acceptance - BEST (100%)
Spring Buildup - BEST
Gentleness - very gentle (second just behind Midnites)
Swarming Tendency - very low (ranked second)
Propolizing - slight (All Buckfast colonies)
Longevity of Queens - TIED FOR BEST (87% after 16 months)
Wintering - TIED FOR BEST
and..
HONEY PRODUCTION - BEST (during two years). For details see the February, March, and April 1982 issues of American Bee Journal.
Housekeeping - Buckfast bees keep a clean, neat hive. This helps them to resist diseases of the brood.
Adaptation - These bees do well anywhere, but are especially well adapted to areas having damp, cold winters.
Compatibility - Buckfast Queens cross well with other breeds.
 
If that's not enough there's a pretty good synopsis here: http://www.rweaver.com/adam.php
 
Now if you're going to promote feral bees, well, yeah, yer foot's been shot 
 

[westhill]

My yard is tiny, tiny, tiny. I have neighbors on all sides and none of them know I have bees, and I plan to keep it that way.  It is legal to keep bees in my town, but only if you have a big yard, have them 50 feet from the property line, blah blah blah, all stuff I can't do because my yard is not big enough. So I figure if no one knows, no one will care.

My one hive is eight feet from the neighbor's yard (and the entrance faces his yard) but there's a six-foot fence between us, so the bees come out of the hive and immediately fly up. The neighbor parks a big boat right on the other side of the fence and never uses it, so no people are ever right there to see the bees. The hive is also next to my garage and a big tree. It is hidden from street view by a child's playhouse. It's only about 12 feet from my house. So the bees have a narrow slot where they come out of the hive and because of the surrounding trees, buildings, and fence, immediately fly almost straight up and are gone to sight. It is cool to sit in a chair in the backyard and look straight up--WOW, the traffic! But if you're looking sideways like a normal human does, they're pretty much invisible. So my advice for hiding a hive is to block it in with tall things. Also, if you paint it the same color as your house/garage/other outbuilding, it will blend in.

I have heard of people who paint them to look like air conditioners, recycling bins, etc. I may resort to that if I have to. Or if anyone finds out about my Langstroth and gives me a hard time, I might get a top bar hive and make a fake top for it with artificial flowers--to any glance, it will look like some kind of planter.
 

[KeyLargoBees]

Speaking of testiness...in beekeepers....sheesh Colo. No offense meant but it seems we have a difference of opinion.

I understand that there may be university studies....and in those studies there is a controlled test environment where domesticated bees are arbitrarily ranked against one another....but to make blanket statements that condemn any and all swarms whether they be cast offs from a domesticated hive or a truly feral colony and to eradicate them by re-queening without giving them a chance to prove their temper is an issue that may contribute to the breeding out of other desirable traits that would allow bees to better deal with the stresses modern man is placing on them.

I am still relatively new to this hobby so if your experience outweighs mine and I am in the wrong then so be it....but I think that presenting those sort of statements to the general non beekeeping public will do more harm than good and skew peoples attitude towards wild hives with the negative connotations being presented against the "evil dastardly feral" bees.

[Michael Bush]

>Here's a sample of the old advertising for Buckfast breeding:...

And that was a good description of them back in the 70s... the ones I have seen in the current century however do not begin to be covered by the term "testy"...

[Colobee]

No AHB in Ontario...
 
KeyLargo there's an old saying - you never really seem to  learn from other peoples mistakes. I have 38 years of making beekeeping mistakes and trying to defend and nurture mean feral hives is how I got my start. I won't be starting over.
 
Whatever flips your switch.