At the Hive Entrance.

As founder member and Immediate Past President of Newbattle Beekeeping Club, it was my duty to welcome the members of West Linton Beekeeping Club to our apiary for a visit. As Secretary of the West Linton crowd, it should have been my duty to thank myself for the generous invitation, however, I was pleased that the president was present to take over that responsibility for me.

We were just leaving when I realised that I hadn't taken a blip for the day so I jumped out of the car and snapped this bit of our shed wall. Inside the shed are some beehives; it is customary, in some countries, to keep bees in this fashion with entrance holes in the side of the shed connected by a manifold to the corresponding hive inside - each hive having it's own set of entrance holes. It seemed to be a good idea for us to give this method a try since we had the shed going begging.

Bees are easily confused, so it is good practice to mark each hive entry with something distinctive; anything static will work, we use various coloured shapes so there are this thought bubble, a circle, a square and a star-burst with each one a different bright colour. The cues that the bees use in practice are usually quite subtle as it is not normal for colonies to live in close proximity in the wild, it is only when they are managed that they find themselves housed in the insect equivalent of high rise flats.

There is the story of an apiary manager ordering his minions to tidy up the site in readiness for a visit from the land owner; so they trimmed the hedges, pruned the shrubs, mowed the grass and removed all the weeds. When the visitor arrived there was chaos because the thousands of flying bees couldn't find their way home but, even worse, it was a sunny day when several queens were out on their mating flights and a colony without its queen is not viable. No doubt many things were said when the extent of the problems were realised, not all of them suitable for mixed company.

For a similar reason, it is not a good idea to put hives in a line; bees can't count so, when returning home replete with nectar, they will stop at the first hive that looks right, consequently, it is common for one of the two end hives to end up with all the flying bees while those occupying the rest of the row are compromised by having too small a population to be viable.