We are settling in with our bees on 10 acres of raw land heavily populated with huisatche and mesquite trees. We are one of 6 10 acre lots that a rancher cut out of his larger property for quick income.
I seem to be a popular person to call or talk to because I’m on the call list for the local Agrilife agency. I also am responsible for educating our local Ag guy from the county appraisal district about bees. He has also been sending folks to me.
Now I’m feeling guilty. The man next to me is planning on puttin bees on his property. A man 2 lots Dow plans to put bees on his property. A woman called me who owns land about a half mile behind me wants to put bees on her land.
None of these people seem to be passionate about bees. They just want the Ag Valuation.
Now I feel guilty because I’ve discouraged all of them from keeping bees. While there are acres and acres of huisatche and mesquite, there’s not a lot of variety that I’ve seen. I guess I’m hoarding what little variety that I see.
It has only recently dawned on me that if I encourage the others to grow crops beneficial to bees that my concerns might be unfounded, and may actually help my bees.
The county requirement is 6 hives for 5 acres and 1 hive for every 2 1/2 acres beyond 5, with a maximum of 20 acres. So, that’s 8 hives for each of these little 10 acre plots.
