Apidea Spacing

[kiwiuk927]

Hi,
I would like to create a long bench where I can out quite a few apideas for mating. I understand that they should face opposite ways to help stop drifting. How far apart do you think the apideas should be from the next door neighbour?
Thanks

[fatshark]

Hi kiwiuk927
Jon will be along in a minute ... in the meantime, I've had them almost touching. I usually have two per mating stand.
2508
Mine are Kielers and I also have different coloured entrance disks. You could pin something distinctive to the fronts of your Apideas.

[Adam]

I think that a more random pattern is better than having them in a line. I paint mine different colours too.
I have seen it when the bees from a close-by mini-nuc that's queenless decide to joint the queenright one next door - in this case it was about 3 feet and the entrances faced the same direction; with the obvious fun of what to do with them when they can't all get in.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi kiwiuk927
You could pin something distinctive to the fronts of your Apideas.

Underpants! Try to disguise them as a line of washing that should avoid neighbour issues

[Jon]

I have mine fairly close together for convenience. I lose the odd queen which flies into the wrong apidea but it is not a major issue.
If all the virgins are exactly the same age and the weather has been bad for a few days, the problem arises when you get a good sunny break as a lot of them take mating flights at the same time.
You can get problems where the queen settles with some workers before returning to the apidea from a mating flight as several queens can settle in the same place and the workers often start to ball each other queens.

[kiwiuk927]

Morning,

Thanks for the feed back.
I now have a better idea about how to construct what I would like to use

Kiwiuk

[Mellifera Crofter]

... I paint mine different colours too. ...

Different colours probably help, but according to Jürgen Tautz (p78-79 of The Buzz about Bees - I do like that book), bees' colour perception back home, with a full crop after foraging on flowers, is less important to them and they struggle to discriminate between colours and recognise only blue, but their ability to recognise shapes and patterns remain the same - so, adding a distinct design to each hive, or painting a picture on them, may be more helpful to guide the bees home.

Kitta

[Bridget]

Kitta when we were in Switzerland we saw lots of painted entrances to hives but the interesting thing was the combinations of shapes, triangles, squareS, rectangles etc that the colours were painted. Probably only blue, red and yellow used but lots of different combinations and shapes. Of course they will have about 16 hive entrances in two lines of eight , above and below in their bee house and all pointing the same way so they don't seem to worry about drifting. I have a picture somewhere .....
BTw I'm in the French Alps Chamonix region at present where it's very warm in the sun, virtually no snow and we've seen tons of hives with bees flying. Think that's very unusual for the alpine regions.
Happy new year to you Kitta


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[Mellifera Crofter]

...Probably only blue, red and yellow used but lots of different combinations and shapes. .... I have a picture somewhere .....
...

If you can find that picture when you're back home again, Bridget, I would be interested to see it.

I suppose your colonies are securely tucked up inside your bee house, so you can enjoy your holiday without worrying about Storm Frank. It's wild up here on my hill!

Best wishes for 2016 to you as well, Bridget.

Kitta

[Bridget]

If you can find that picture when you're back home again, Bridget, I would be interested to see it.

I suppose your colonies are securely tucked up inside your bee house, so you can enjoy your holiday without worrying about Storm Frank. It's wild up here on my hill!

Best wishes for 2016 to you as well, Bridget.

Kitta

I'm attaching three photos. One shows the Swiss shed method where the front of your garden shed or even garage takes a ready made http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160125/aa3df4575a4ca2b1737d27925f737fc7.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160125/6f3afb09a5c6e2d0472d7694b3b322d0.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160125/75b772109e5a405eb60c8f0975ceaa39.jpg
insert that has the entrances already built in, another shows a movable hut on wheels with the same method and another shows a pile of I think nucs all with their different markings


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[Mellifera Crofter]

...and another shows a pile of I think nucs all with their different markings

Thank you, Bridget - the distinct patterns on the nucs are interesting and, I think, more useful to the bees finding their way home. I'm now wondering whether to make a bagful of coloured shapes to use when needed.
Kitta