# Hive Spacing - What's appropriate?



## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

When I got my first two hives I just plopped them down on a pallet side by side. The old beekeeper I bought them from said it didn't matter. However I've since read some books that state it does and other books that state it doesn't. When I look at photos on beekeeper blogs they sometimes have their hives spaced out and other times they are bunched together. Here's a photo of mine from last summer so you can sort of reference what I'm talking about.










You can see my two hives are right up against each other. This year I'm expanding out the beeyard, looking to add up to ten more hives if I can. So I'm thinking more about the spacing. Should I put the new hives alongside the existing ones? Put them somewhere else? What are the conditions under which having the hives too close can become a problem?


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## Mike in Ohio (Oct 29, 2002)

If you only have a couple hives next to each other it shouldn't be much of an issue.

As you put more hives in a row, drift becomes more of a potential issue. This is why you'll see beekeepers use different color bodies (don't know if that really helps) ,etc.

What we do is generally put 3 hives in a grouping. Here's a picture that illustrates what I mean:

http://members.aol.com/export4/farm_hives.jpg

We lost the middle hive in the right hand grouping and hadn't replaced it at the time this pic was taken. There are 4 more groupings of 3 off to the right of the picture. 

One nice thing is in the way we have these set up is that we can drive up on the path at the edge of this field and work the hives from behind. They are about a half mile in from the road.

Mike


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## damoc (Jul 14, 2007)

good hive spacing is a major advantage (if you can afford the space)
queen mating is more successfull,drift is reduced or eliminated and perhaps the biggest bonus is that it helps with disease controll AFB and varoa mites
when mites/varroa reach critical mass the hive can get so overwhelmed as to just leave especially if the queen has been killed the bees that leave will land in nearby colonies bringing with them many mites which can cause rapid colapse of large numbers of hives in a small area.i wouldnt be worried about
a couple of close hives however.


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## Queen Bee (Apr 7, 2004)

We placed my hives about three feet apart. My reasons are: I can stand on either side and work around the entire with ease. I can place a hive stand between them to set the supers on when I am going deep into the hive.

We have beekeepers that have them yards away from each other--you could almost drive a truck between them and we have beekeepers that have them almost touching. One beekeeper places his hives back to back in two rows and there is no room at all between them.. the lids actually touch each other. None seem to have more or less problems.. Queen Bee


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## sugarbush (Jul 15, 2007)

I set mine side to side touching, I also have had some stacked one on top of the other. The trick is to alternate the entrances, like use a top entrance on one hive and a bottom on the next, or one front and one back.


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