Idaho Honey Bee

An out yard can be a blessing or a struggle as far as ways to keep more bees.

Most of us can keep a hive or two in town, but as you split them and add a swarm hive or two, it gets to the point where there are just too many bees out back. Sometimes the spouse makes a comment or two about all the bees, or maybe you get concerned about losing the blessing of the neighbors.

The fun thing about out yards is that you get to thinking about how great it would be to have more hives, or locating some in a new location in order to take advantage of nectar flows that you do not have at home. After all, not only does honey taste different from various locations, it also varies from hive to hive. This makes honey on par with wine in that it is always different from batch to batch.

So your wheels start to turn trying to think of a new place to locate hives. Maybe your brother-in law is growing a field of lavender this year, or someone you know has a grove of Locust trees. These great ideas can be quite fun, so I have compiled a few thoughts that will help you.

The closer it is to home the better.

Driving out to service hives every week to fill feeders in spring will take twice the time away from your regular spring chores if the location is very far from home. I recommend a close location, and 2 gallon bucket feeders to increase volume.

Put every beekeeping accessory you can in the truck, and leave them until fall. It is a bummer to arrive in the bee yard on a beautiful spring day to realize you forgot the smoker, or the hive tool.

Make a list BEFORE each trip of the other things you need to take like syrup, pollen patties, mite treatment, etc. This will force you to do a powdered sugar roll, alcohol wash, or similar mite measurement because you will not want to come back tomorrow to pull a slider from a screened bottom board.

I recommend a camper shell on the back of the truck that you can close up, which will help keep out the bees when you pull supers, and keep out the home bees when you roll in late and figure on unloading in the morning.

One good location with several hives is more efficient time wise, than several locations with a couple hives in each.

That being said, I think it is a lot of fun to have multiple yards, even when you just have a few hives.

Leaving them on a trailer that can be left there, means you reduce the loading and unloading effort if you move them to multiple locations the same year, and it also makes it easy to pull them to safety if the nearest crop has weevils and the crop duster is scheduled tomorrow night. I like to give out honey up front to whoever provides the location along with a phone number, and the assurance that I am just a phone call away if they know of an impending threat.

Out yards can be a lot of fun, increase your opportunities to produce more honey, and make a better beekeeper out of you. I recommend it if you have the time.