"Mary Fisher"wrote after

"Bob Hobden" asked
Mary, before I went to this allotment site one of the gardeners did keep
bees there and I'm told the crops of things that depend on pollination,
like Runner Beans, increased enormously. This site does not appear to
suffer from vandalism and there is only crops to steal, nobody keeps
tools on their plots much. So what other reasons are there for not having
bees on the site.
Being the Rep for the site I need to be able to form a considered
opinion.

Runner beans usually develop even without insect pollination but honey
bees aren't heavy enough to get into runner bean flowers anyway, they're
exploited by bumble beas.

But you don't need a close source of pollinating insects, honey bees will
fly (it's said) up to three miles radius from their hive or wild nest,
that's a very large area. I wouldn't rely on three miles though :-) Other
insects, especially the ubiquitous wild bumble bees, are also pollinaters.
The crops might increase because of a nearby hive but it's not guaranteed.

You're lucky that you don't have vandalism!

The only reason I can think of for not having a hive on the site is that
the beekeeper will have to visit it to take swarm prevention action, to
manage diseases, to add space for honey and to remove the honey. S/he
might also have to feed if it's been a poor season or if too much honey is
removed. In the season - which is also the growing season - say from April
to September - this (approximate) weekly disruption to the hive will cause
a lot of bee activity in the air. The beekeeper will be protected by veil
and gloves, as a rule, the gardeners won't be. If the beekeeper is clumsy
and makes the bees defensive someone might suffer.

There's also the potential problem of vibration caused by machinery. That
too can cause bees to become defensive. There might be no machinery used
near the hive so it might be irrelevant but it's something to consider.


On this site I haven't yet seen or heard of any vandalism, unlike our
previous site where every time we went there we wondered what we would find,
not a pleasant experience.
This site has open land on two sides.
The beekeeper lives very locally so could visit as often as needed.
The bit about vibration may be relevant as we have a sewage pumping station
next to the site and the tanker lorries that sometimes visit it have to
drive through the site. They do that very seldom though.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden