Hi friends,

This is my first posting to this list. I have been a member for ~2 weeks
and have already enjoyed and learned from your posts. Please forgive (or
delete) this long post.

I am looking for room for several very calm but very productive colonies in
the San Diego area.

Some background:
I live in a very regulated private gated community in northern San Diego
County. Here in San Diego the hobby apiarist faces real difficulties
(beyond mites, etc). The local "news services" are always playing up
stories about "killer bees". This really makes it difficult to convince
people that bees are calm. It does help that I point out that I have
children of 4, 6 and 8 years running around in the yard with the bees.
Fortunately we are flanked by very tolerant neighbors, and I asked
permission to have beehives before capturing a couple of swarms last year.

In addition, we did something that I recommend, and may have nipped the
initial fear that sometime accompanies "bees" from those who might
otherwise be inclined to assume that bees=stings=danger: I went out a
bought several of Dadant's little yellow beginning beekeeping books and
gave them as presents to my immediate neighbors. This promoted interest in
beekeeping, eliminated a lot of the ignorance-based fear and, coupled with
answering their questions and asking if they might be interested in helping
with the extraction of honey (and an endless supply of honey) promoted a
real bond with the neighbors. They have even treated swarms landing in
their trees more as a real life nature lesson than an annoyance. "We just
stayed inside until they settled down onto our tree branch; just like it
said in the book", and they were fasinated by the process of recovery of
the swarm. I think you will agree: really exceptional neighbors!!

I had two hives last year and, as you might expect, San Diego really has a
year long season. Spring flowers and Fall/Winter eucalyptus. One of my two
hives produced 300-400 lbs of honey. At one time the hive had 9 medium
supers on top and I harvested 2 times during the year. I was able to nip
the swarming in the bud by inspecting the brood chambers every 2 weeks and
destroying all queen cells.

Now the present situation:
I had four hives last week; today I have 6 hives. I physically can not
remove the ~300 lbs of honey presently on my largest hive on a reasonable
schedule to check the status. I removed ~100 lbs of honey from this hive 3
weeks ago (I left ~4 incompletely filled or uncapped supers) and returned
the empty drawn combs to the hive (now with ~8 supers). Three of the other
hives presently have another 200-300 lbs of honey on them.

In the past three days I have captured 2 sizable swarms from these hives. I
do not want to push it with the neighbors. As you might expect, I have
noticed (even though they haven't - yet) that the bees are collecting water
from newly sprinkled grass and backyard ponds/swimming pools. I do not want
to ruin a very good situation.

Therefore, I would like to keep one hive in the yard, and relocate the
remaining 5 hives.

I would love the opportunity to share the bounty. Any takers or suggestions
from people with property in the San Diego area??

Jeffrey Miller
Carlsbad, California