Description
The bee break is located directly south of the apiary, separating the apiary from the asparagus and blueberry perennial plantings and the honey hedge beyond.
Illustration
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The bee break is a fairly dense planting of native pollinator-friendly trees and shrubs. This patch is in front of the apiary. A single row of hazelnut trees was not preventing a tense experience weeding in the asparagus and blueberry plantings, aka the former bee highway. The bee break planting influences the movement of StellaLou Farm honeybees up and over this garden area.
Process and Timeline
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Observe (2016): We had a difficult year with our honeybees. We had some extremely productive, yet, extremely aggressive honeybees in our home apiary. These bees would chase and sting us no matter where we were working on the land but it made picking our asparagus and tending our blueberries particularly difficult as they were just south of the beehives. The first intervention was to requeen our hives and that took some time. It, also, sparked the idea of a bee brake.
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Planning (2017): We had a single row of hazelnut trees between the hives and garden beds but we decided that we could reinforce this hedge to make a bee brake; that is, a planting that would be like a wall encouraging the bees to fly up and over the area of our garden beds. We chose native trees that were beneficial to our bees and other wildlife. They would also bring an element of beauty to the unused area by the driveway.
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Soil Prep (2017): We used the subsoiler to decompact the soil and to create planting trenches for the plants.
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Planting (2017): We densely planted red twig dogwoods and redbud trees. Gave them water, trimmed the grass and weeds and let them grow.
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What We Have Learned & What's Next...
This works! While the gardens directly south of the apiary will always get some special attention from the honeybees, as they should, this intervention has made maintaining them a much more comfortable experience.
An added benefit to this planting is that it is often the first stop of a swarming hive, making catching the occasional swarm much easier.
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An added benefit is that the planting required very little input to grow strong and healthy.
Plant List
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Red twig dogwood
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Redbud
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Hazel