Do You Know Where Your Bees Are? or How to Get along with your neighbors

This post is really part two of the beginner question: "How do you deal with your neighbors when you keep bees?" Part one is here.

There are a number of issues to consider in dealing with your neighbors such as protecting your neighbors from the bees' flight paths. This can mean putting your hives beside a tall fence so that in order to leave your yard, they have to fly up above your neighbors' heads. In my yard this is solved by putting my bees on a deck with a high hedge around it.

A second issue is to protect view of the hives to keep the neighbors from constant awareness of your bees. If the bees are too prominent, you are likely to be blamed for every yellow jacket sting in the neighborhood.

A third issue is where the bees will get water. If your neighbors have a swimming pool, the bees will be drawn (who knows why) to the chlorine in the water. But more than chlorine, bees like really nasty water. My first year I provided them with a lovely water source.
I've since learned that they like it best when old leaves, moss, etc collects in the water source.

Below you can see several pictures of my bees this morning, drinking out of the water source, now filled with leaves and other yuck.




Click on this picture for a lovely view of the bee's tongue in the upper bee on the moss.