A hive works a circle a couple of miles across, and you don't own most of it. Here's
how much land that is, how many colonies it will carry, and how far apart to put your yards so
they aren't robbing each other's flowers.
Forage quality is a judgement call and the numbers behind it are rules of thumb,
not measurements. Bees will tell you the truth faster than any estimate — if the yard stops
gaining weight in a good year, it's carrying too many.
—
The rings
1 mile
2,011
acres · 3.1 sq mi
Where most of the work happens
2 miles
8,042
acres · 12.6 sq mi
The realistic working range
3 miles
18,096
acres · 28.3 sq mi
They can, but it barely pays
What that land will carry
Hives this yard supports
—
Acres per hive at your number
—
Space yards at least
—
Overlap with a neighbour yard
—
See it on a map
The calculator above works anywhere,
including with no signal. The map needs a connection — load it when you have one.
Or just picture it
Distance costs them honey. A bee flying two miles burns a meaningful share of what she's
carrying just getting home, and a three-mile round trip is close to break-even on a weak flow.
That's why a hive on the edge of good forage badly outperforms one in the middle of nowhere with
the same nominal range. When you're picking a yard, what's inside the first mile matters far more
than what's inside the third.
Water counts as forage. A colony needs water every day of the summer, and if the nearest
reliable source is a neighbour's pool you will hear about it. Something within a couple of hundred
yards — a pond, a creek, a dripping hydrant, a tub with floats in it — is part of siting a yard,
not an afterthought.
Two miles between yards, not three. Perfect separation would need six miles between yards
and nobody has that. Two to three miles keeps the heavy overlap — the first-mile ring where most
foraging happens — mostly separate, which is the part that actually matters. Overlapping outer
rings cost you very little.