Bees. Photo: Pixabay, pexels.com
Hamilton based Introduction to Beekeeping lecturer Dara Dimitrov says healthy bees do not soil their hives.
Bees
“Bees taking cleansing flights indicate they are healthy,” said Dimitrov who has a Masters in Beekeeping from Cornell University in New York.
“The issue is whether there are commercial apiaries near urban housing,” Dimtrov said.
“Urban beekeepers are usually not the problem, because there is a restriction on the number of hives they can keep in their gardens. The recommendation is to keep your happy hive facing away from your neighbour’s property, so they are not in the bees’ flight path.
“Having said that, if the surrounding neighbourhood is a good source of food, the bees practise floral fidelity, which literally translates to the whole hive going to that one or several sources until the flowering stops. It results in excellent fruit and vegetable production.
“Commercial apiaries, on the other hand, typically have between 20 and 40 hives. A hive may have up to 100,000 in bees, so we are talking huge volumes of bees.
“You cannot ‘stop’ bees from practising floral fidelity or following a particular flight path – the only solution is to move the hives.”
Bees Photo: chuanyu2015, pexels.com
