Hi, I'm new to this, so just following the rule to post something within two weeks of registering. I have been keeping bees for about 4 years now. However, I've only had two successful years of harvesting honey. I live in the south and it gets dry here so a lot of the time there's not much bloom except for the farmers crops and I don't know if that's really good for the bees as so many of the crops have pest resistant seeds now. Anyway, it seems as though I constantly have to feed my bees and I have lost my hives a couple of times to pests, and have come to the conclusion that if I lose them again, I'm giving up since they are quite expensive to replace. Look forward to information from this board, maybe it'll give me new insight and help to know what I might be doing wrong. Thanks!
It seems that you have such cultivated areas around you that bees do not get yield in you site.
Efficient flying distance is under one mile, and you should have something all the time to catch.
You should move hives to better pastures where do not exist other hives. You see density of bees in flowers.
Best way is to find a experinced beekeepers nearby who can tell to you how he see your surrounding
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But like you say, environment may be too dry to beeplants and too small area to forage
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