Hi New to beekeeping and just trying to find the best site for the hive "Would it be O.K. to site the hive near or in a hen run?"Was wondering if the hens could kill the bees or the bees affect the hens.

Hi Gordie

The positioning of your hives / apiary is important for many reasons. First thing to do is read up on the health and safety aspect of beekeeping, you can download our simple guide here:

http://www.edinburghbeekeepers.org.uk/downloads/H&S.pdf

Beyond the H&S aspect there are a few other things to consider:

• Ease of access for getting in and out with hives and equipment
• Sunny sheltered position to keep the bees motivated, particularly in winter
• Access to good forage oportunities throughout the year
• Security, away from unwanted attention from people and animals
• Neighbours, inform / ask them, also are hives of bees permitted?

Lastly the chickens. If you are working on a hive in close prximity to the chickens and the bees become aggressive as they often can, they will see them moving around and will attack, and it will not take too many stings on the head comb and wattle to kill them (I had an unfortunate experiencer of this in my own garden!).

Thanks for the help, and I had a read at the health and safety download.The position of the hive is meeting most of the regs. Its just the Hens problem. The ideal position in my garden is near the hen run "Do you think 4 meters away would give any problems?"The hens love to catch insects "Do you think they could harm the bees?"

Hi, the hens will be no threat to the bees, it might be the other way round!

I had been working on my hives in the garden a couple of summers ago, and they became a bit tetchy, so I closed the hives up. Unfortunately the angry bees had spotted the little black chooks and decided to attack. Jock the cock was dead within a couple of hours after a good stinging. The hives were not more than 4-5 meters from the coup.

I don't keep bees in the garden now!

Thanks for the valued information, will have a rethink over the next couple of weeks. :

my bees are in a patch where last summer there were several hives, just a few feet from the fence keeping the (17) hens in. The hens are communal, and have several carers/friends. Before we put up screening in front of the hives ( to get the bees to go up and over rather than swooping in at head height) there were a few cases of the humans visiting the hens getting stung, but the hens had no problems, even when the bees were being worked with. I don't think any of the colonies were very mean or nasty- the ones i worked with didn't get too cross, or follow . the humans tended to get stung when they were hanging around in front of the hives- a really bad idea. the hives are moving up to the end of the plot, so there won't be so much human /hive interaction. So it can work.