# How many hives?



## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

Well one year since I got my first beehive I'm getting pretty addicted to these cool little critters. Got to wondering today how many hives I could keep here. How does one figure this out? I live in a heavily wooded area. Around our house we have about 5 acres of Pasture which has clover in the spring, all summer if we get rain but one cannot expect that every year. Most pastures around here have yellow hop clover and white clovers. There are a few more acres onthe neighboring property, then about 1/2 mile down the road is maybe 25 acres where we keep some cattle and a couple horses. Tons of yellow hop clover and sericea lespedeza (may not be usually regarded as big honey plants but they do put on a good flow apparently- and the lespedeza is a summer bloomer and quite drought tolerant).

Now the cool part is I got to looking on satellite maps and there is a large cattle ranch near us about 1100+ acres and it's entire area is within the boundaries of a 2 mile radius from us. I expect there should be a lot of clover there, clover is very common here. Also, the sides of all these dirt roads have the lespedeza, also there are a lot of wild blackberries in some of these overgrown fields near, sumac, Carolina buckthorn in the some wooded areas, a few mimosas here and there, sadly seem to be no redbuds close. Tons of wild carrots. Anyway, if you were looking to be conservative, wanting to avoid having to feed your bees (and expecting to leave them good stores to facilitate that, how many hives might you figure on? How does one figure it out?


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

southerngurl said:


> ... how many hives might you figure on? How does one figure it out?


Add colonies until production noticeably drops. From what you described, you could easily have a few dozen, maybe several dozen.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

For us about 20 colnies are about the limit the area can hold and still have a good honey production year from the yards.

 Al


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

Thanks!


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## PaulNKS (Jan 11, 2009)

You can support a lot more than you would think. Bees will often go as much as 2 miles to forage. They can go up to 5 miles but rarely do since it would take all of their forage, consumed, to get them back home.

Keep in mind that although clovers make good honey, the most common clover in many areas, Medium Red Clover, is useless to honey bees. The nectar is too far down in the bloom for them to be able to reach. 

Although you are in a heavily wooded area, they would still do well. Bees don't just go after flowers. They go after almost any type of bloom and they love sap.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Many bee keepers get the idea that the bees can not get to the nectar of mamoth red clove. Serveral years ago there was a artical in the American Bee Journal on this subject. Test proved this to be a false idea. I even had a picture at one time of a honey bee in that big red clover bloom chewing a hole to get the nectar out.
I've got to try and find that picture.

 Al


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

Our most common clovers are yellow hop (large and small) and white.


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## PaulNKS (Jan 11, 2009)

alleyyooper said:


> Many bee keepers get the idea that the bees can not get to the nectar of mamoth red clove. Serveral years ago there was a artical in the American Bee Journal on this subject. Test proved this to be a false idea. I even had a picture at one time of a honey bee in that big red clover bloom chewing a hole to get the nectar out.
> I've got to try and find that picture.
> 
> Al


There is a difference between mammoth and medium. The medium red clover is the one they cannot use.


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