Spacing hives for biodynamic beekeeping
Winter is a great time to rearrange hives because they’re at their lightest weight. How you set up your hive stands can impact honey bee colonies.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. I make a small commission from purchases made through these links, at no cost to you. I share products that I know and use. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Several years ago, I attended a beekeeping talk and the speaker shared research that showed how a particular hive arrangement could help prevent colony drift. I believe the research had been done by honey bee expert Tom Seeley, but I haven’t been able to find a specific study to cite. If you’re not familiar with beekeeping, colony drift is a term that describes bees from one colony returning (drifting) to a different colony. Drift can cause a little problem to become a big problem because honey bees carrying varroa mites, contaminated pollen or nectar, or other diseases and pests, could spread the issue from one to multiple colonies.
Colony drift is something that can happen on the hobby scale and the commercial scale. I feel safe in saying that it’s fairly run-of-the-mill if not cliché for hobby beekeepers to set up their apiary with their hives all in a row. I raise my hands as one of those folks. In commercial operations, multiple hives are squished together on pallets and lined up in clusters with other pallets. Would you find honey bee colonies in nature establishing their hives so close and in straight lines? Not at all. Wild hives generally don’t need to deal with drift because of their distanced arrangements.
In the study, the one I can’t find, the hive arrangement that prevents colony drift is a C-shape (or U-shape) hive stand pattern. The study showed a markedly reduced rate of drift with that pattern, potentially demonstrating that honey bees have a better time wayfinding when their colony holds a place in a curved shape rather than a straight line. After learning this I now use each winter to slowly move my hive stands into a C-shape pattern.
An article I can find, “Darwinian Beekeeping” by Tom Seeley, proposes that colonies can be managed in a more natural way by spacing them approximately 100-to-150 feet apart. Not everyone has the space to accommodate such a wide hive spacing and, if they did, might choose not to because of the inconveniences it introduces. Some of the downsides of spacing hives 100 feet apart include the hassle of moving resources between colonies (if that’s something you practice), pulling honey supers, moving new equipment to the hive, managing varroa mite treatments (particularly oxalic acid vaporization), and inspecting the hives efficiently.
The benefits of keeping hives farther apart go beyond avoiding or reducing the risk of drift. According to Seeley, hives spaced closer together have a higher risk of being robbed, greater forage competition, and issues with new queens returning to the wrong colony after their mating flight. From my own personal experience, I’ve noticed that hives in one place also have fairly equal battles against small hive beetles (SHBs), if SHB are present.
A few years ago, I picked up a copy of (paid link) Biodynamic Beekeeping, which was published posthumously from author Matthias Thun. The book fascinated me because it explained specific hive management practices rooted in research timed around planetary and constellation alignments. Sections of the book also explore the benefits of spacing hives to allow colonies to live in the way that they would normally live on their own in nature.
This winter I’m planning on taking one of my hives and moving it more than 100 feet from my apiary. To help mitigate some of those downsides that I mentioned, I’ve picked out a spot that’s vehicle accessible so that I can have options when I move equipment and resources, and pull honey. I’m also making sure that the new hive stand spot is within an extension cord radius of an electric outlet. My husband modified an oxalic acid vaporizer for me so that I don’t need to rely on a portable battery to power the vaporizer. Instead, I can plug it directly into an electric outlet. When I treat my colonies, it’s been easy having them lined up in a row, plugging in, and treating them all at once. Having a colony in a new location further away will add some extra labor, but knowing that the new spot has electric access makes it fairly minimal. Considering the long-term health benefits for the hives, I’m OK with a little extra work on my part.
If you’re thinking of getting started with honey bees, I’m speaking all about it at the Resilient Living Conference this February 2024 in Dunn, North Carolina. It’s 3 months away. Grab your ticket now.