Plan an apiary site the way the article recommends: set the colony count, the distance to the nearest neighbour or public path, the boundary screening, and the local forage density, then watch forage capacity, neighbour risk and security exposure respond.
How it works ▾
Forage capacity is how many colonies the local flora within roughly a two to three kilometre foraging radius can reasonably support, scaling with the density slider:
capacity = round(6 + density × 0.5)
utilization = colonies / capacity × 100
Above ~110% the forage ring starts showing fewer active patches per bee and the flight traffic turns amber/red — the article's point that overstocking shows up as lower yield and more robbing, not an obvious hard limit.
Neighbour risk falls with distance and with a taller boundary hedge, since both reduce stray flight paths and sting incidents near people or livestock:
neighbourRisk = clamp(100 − distance×0.5 − hedge×15, 0, 100)
Security exposure is lowest at a moderate distance from a road or path — too close and the apiary is visible to passers-by, too far and it becomes an unsupervised site nobody keeps an eye on; a taller screen helps at any distance:
exposure = clamp(40 + |distance − 70|×0.3 − hedge×15, 5, 100)
- Colonies — more hives raise utilization and bee traffic toward the forage ring.
- Distance — further from a neighbour or path cuts sting/complaint risk.
- Screening — a hedge or fence near ~2 m cuts both neighbour risk and visibility from the road.
- Forage density — richer surroundings light up more forage patches and raise capacity.