The beehives are in the prairie.

This afternoon, I cleared and roughly leveled some land in our prairie.  The two beehives will have trees to the North and the West.  This will break the winter wind nicely.  They will have good sun for most of the day, including early morning sun.  The early sun will warm the hive so that the bees will be more likely to start foraging earlier in the day.

Starting to clear the old prairie grasses.

Over the cleared land, I placed overlapping layers of landscaping fabric.  On that, I placed the patio/paver stones.  They are 24" x 24" stones.

Partway through the back-breaking project.

After the 14 stones were in place, I trimmed back the excess landscaping fabric.  The end result is below.  They are fairly level.  You couldn't roller skate across the things, but it is good enough for government work.  And, it should be good enough for the bees.

Final layout of the fourteen 24" x 24" patio/paver stones.

My thoughts on using the pattern above:  (1) I could have both hives on the same platform.  This saved on stones as I didn't need to make two completely separate areas; (2) The extra stones in the front would keep more of the bees's flight path clear of the grasses.  The grasses on our prairie routinely grow to 6+ feet.

Beehives are in place and ready for the bees that are coming ~5/1/2013.