Sanderstead Apiary – We have been really lucky and have been offered a great little space for a small apiary in Sanderstead, Surrey.  It’s a great secluded space with lots of natural vegetation around and no one to interfere with the bees.  So in preparation we put down our bases and bricks ready for a whole set of new colonies.  Hopefully as the Season progresses, we can expand the apiary and try to fill it out with at least 10 colonies.

This is what the site looked like with our first 2 colonies in place:

The area we have been allowed to use is mainly left untended so that the natural vegetation is allowed to grow without any interference.  We just have to keep a look out for the grass around the hives to make sure it doesn’t get too long.  After just 1 week, the grass around the hives had grown so long that the hives blended into the landscape.  Not a bad thing to keep them out of sight, but not great for the bees flight path.

My first action was to clear away the grass directly in front and around the hives, and inspect all the colonies.  I have decided to use a combination of wood and poly hives just as an experiment to see if the colonies flourish more in one of the other.

Here is a quick picture of 3 colonies in in the poly hives:

Just to get an idea of the view the bees have as they emerge from the hives, I took a quick picture from just behind the hives.  It looks pretty good, and hopefully as we go through the nectar flow, I hope there is plenty for them to be happy and productive with