Choosing pastures

[Finman]

In Finland we have a lot of space. I have summer cottage 150 km from Helsinki, 50 km from Russian border. There is mainly woodland from our cottage to border. Cottage is in the rural village, but fields are good cultivated and there are only turnip rape and dandelion for bees.

To choose ouside pastures is most valuable to honey yied. If I let them be in the yard I will get honey 30% from that I have from outside pastures.

I put 4-5 hives in one point. I put bees together so I have 5-6 langtroth box per hive. I can put 3 hive togethet to make 2 hives, or I put two week just together. AND WITHOUT NEWSPAPER.

Just now turnip rape starts blooming. Other field are planted later and blooming will last 4 weeks. Moreover I must have other blooming with turnip rape because it is not good honey alone.


Fire flower (Chamaenérium angustifólium) is the best yield plant in Finland. When forest is cutted down the fire flower will conquer those areas. Tens and hundreds of hectars woodland.
http://www.teuva.fi/maisema/ark/horsma_s.jpg

http://images.google.fi/imgres?imgurl=www.luontoliitto.fi/metsa/kuvat/tipasjarvi.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.luontoliitto.fi/metsa/perhemetsatalous.html&h=150&w=227&sz=13&tbnid=mrghut5grIYJ:&tbnh=68&tbnw=102&start=8&prev=/images%3Fq%3Davohakkuu%26hl%3Dfi%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG

I have foud that it is very difficult to see out what is good pasture. Mistakes will be done.  If bees must fly over 1 km, the half of honey yield will be gone for flying.  That is why hives must be just near to blooming.

Bees take honey from distance of  2-3 km. That is why I put 4-5 hives in one point, so they can "carve cream from milk".

This year I found a good fire blower area, and I take there only one hive. I want to see, how much 6-box hive it can gather alone from cutted woodland.

[michael l burnett]

finman...love your inputs!
   in vermont(usa) ,enviorment similar to finland? maybe a little warmer?

     our bees are working a pasture of kale we discovered on the old farm our hives are set up on...since we are just getting into main honey flow is it advisable to move hives to this kale pasture..or would this do more harm than good as the kale is only a half mile away and the bees are working it any way...i guess the question is will moving bees closer to the source produce more honey or will re-orientation(at this late date) offset any increased production?
                        HARD TELLIN' NOT KNOWIN'
       
                                          THANKS...brookie :?:

[asleitch]

I have foud that it is very difficult to see out what is good pasture. Mistakes will be done.  If bees must fly over 1 km, the half of honey yield will be gone for flying.  That is why hives must be just near to blooming.

Bees take honey from distance of  2-3 km. That is why I put 4-5 hives in one point, so they can "carve cream from milk".

This year I found a good fire blower area, and I take there only one hive. I want to see, how much 6-box hive it can gather alone from cutted woodland.

I too was worried about how much forage my bees would have, as I am using an out-apiary. In the end, I used the internet to solve my worries. Every square inch of the UK has been digitally photographed, from the air, at various different levels of zoom. You can get low resolution copies off the internet, and I "stitched" seveal together to give me a large aerial photo. I then marked on several circles to indicate 1 miles, 2miles, and 3 miles, and also dotted lines to indicate "half miles". I was amazed to find that their flying distances covered a small town, and all those lovely gardens and flowers! I'd never sat down and thought about it but it was obvious from studying the map, I'd just never realised how close it was.


Adam