Interesting post!

I'm a retired person, who decided to garden and raise as much food on my small backyard garden plot - mostly for my own use, but also because I had more time, and less money, needing something to keep up my interest in life.

So - planted the fruit trees that we like, and made raised bed cedar boxes to raise vegetables, planted berries - and from a past hobby - still had available some old bee hives - now empty.

For some reason, perhaps because I have an organic back yard, a swarm of bees adopted my apricot tree. I used the empty bee boxes to house them in - (hired a professional beekeeper). My thinking perhaps was to keep them from taking up residence in our attic or my neighbor's buildings. They acclimated well and we have lived in harmony since then.

This hive has been there for about 3 years. It has 2 lower brood boxes (larger), and 2 smaller supers on top of that. This is the size I hope to keep it without compromising the bees health.

From time to time, usually when we begin to need a jar of honey or 2, I open the hive and remove a small frame from one of the top supers. Then a cleaned frame is added back, for them to fill again.

My aim was not to raise or produce honey for sale, but just to try to maintain a back yard balance - providing a small amount of honey for consumption, and also trying to maintain the hive within this limited size.

Yesterday, I opened the hive (first time in many months) and removed my usual frame, adding an empty to fill.

This past spring, I had the best pollination of my fruit trees ever. The vegetable bed plants - as well. I plant the type of flowers/attractors that bees like - in hopes of keeping them mostly foraging at home. Although, there is a large canyon area for them as well - with little evidence of source for pesticides.

If the bees decided to leave, or swarm - OK - they will populate and start anew - but my hope is that enough of them stay to keep my small operation going.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

You might be interested in a Top Bar Hive.

http://www.biobees.com/
http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm

brickmanhouse -

Lots of folks buy Mason bee houses and re-supply them each year. But chances are - if you plant the things that attract bees, they will come of their own accord.

Find out which ones grow well in your location. In my part of the country, a common attractant is a ground cover mesembryanthumum - (type of ice plant) that is commonly used to hold sandy hillsides, to prevent erosion. Bees love it. It is called Aptenia. Other flowers - such as borage, mints, buddlehia, etc. also attract them.

Borage grows well in my arid climate and re-seeds. It can also be a nuisance to contain, but makes good compost. It is also fed to chickens - they love it.

Just makes good sense somehow to let nature work for you.
Bejay

We have a decent amount of land as well, and have dedicated a 1/4 acre slope to Bee Heaven. The native plants already growing there are wild blueberries, ferns, sarsaparilla. We left these, and the nice smaller shrubs - serviceberry, mountain ash - and cut down any bigger soft or hardwood trees like birch and maple. Then we dug pockets in the ground, especially the soft ground around roots of the cut-down trees, and transplanted things bees love, that we already had growing elsewhere, and that can take pretty crummy/dry soil: motherwort, valerian, echinacea, oregano, beebalm, thyme. Also sumac. There are some bees around already, We'll see next year just how busy it gets.

If you are interested in obtaining beehives and/or supplies to make them, you may come and get the stuff for free. I have tons of beekeeping and hive materials to get started with. I am living in the house of a former beekeeper who is now disabled by altzheimer's disease and has left the supplies here.