Bailey proposed and Seeley confirmed that the bees' preference for colony density per apiary is 1!  Also they prefer apiaries to be sited half a mile or more apart. Apart from the beekeeper, the worst enemy of a hive of bees is another hive of bees.  However, there has to be a compromise and, as Wedmore famously pointed out, 80 years ago, in paragraph 1219 of his manual "Almost every emergency of management can be met forthwith by putting something into or taking something out of a nucleus, while nuclei themselves seldom present emergencies".

So, if you're working for the benefit of the bees, just keep a small few hives in an apiary, getting on for half of them (depending on season etc) being nuclei; however, if you're working for the benefit of the bank manager you have to factor in things like econonies of scale, transport costs, pollination fees and balance them against reduced crop and more disease per hive.

It's a balancing act.

Chris



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