Hi Peter & all

Over my beekeeping career I have used several methods of positioning of
hives within apiaries.

I started out with hives in long rows with the entrances facing the sun. The
rows were not straight and regular in an attempt to reduce drifting. The bee
stocks concerned were Italianised mongrels.

The same mixed gene stocks have also been used two to a pallet and four to a
pallet. In the latter case each hive faced a different point of the compass.
The twin hive pallets were some facing east/west, some were north/south,
some had both facing south and yet others were SW/SE.

More recently and with stock that is largly AMM, I face the hives outwards
from my working position without any regard for compass direction.

I had a friend (now deceased), that had more than 40 apiaries, his method
was to place 40 hives in a circle, with entrances facing outwards, and about
one hive width between them. His stocks were locally naturalised AMM.

Neither he nor I ever noticed any difference in the activity or honey
gathering power of any colony that could correlate with direction... Yes
there were variations in crop, but the south facing ones were no better than
the rest.

It should be said that in the area concerned, cloudless skys are rare with
most of the annual sunlight diffused by cloud.

The only difference in foraging timing was along racial lines, with the
Italianised stocks scoring the shortest foraging day, regardless of sun
strength and sometimes not foraging at all in dull weather.

I know this appears contrary to some of Blane's research, but I put that
down to race and cloud cover.


Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website...
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman