Moved a hive and learned a lesson :-)

[rrog13]

I’ve heard from several different people that when moving a hive, it’s ideal to move it at least a couple miles away.  I’ve moved hives across the yard a couple different times and when doing so, cut a pine branch and placed it at the entrance which caused them to reorient to the new location of the hive.  The recent swarm I had to the bait hive on top of my hydronic garden needed to be moved before a get together we’re going to have over here in a couple weeks.  I moved this hive last Tuesday night and did the pine branch thing like I’d always done before.  Well …….by noon on Wednesday there were several thousand bees back at the old location.    I setup another hive with a couple drawn out frames and they poured right into it.  Once the sun went down, I moved them back down to the new spot, opened the top and smoke the heck out of them to encourage them to move back into the original box.  They had a march on into the original box so I left them for the night.  In the morning, they had marched right back out and covered the drawn out frames I had in that box.  I threw in a couple more drawn out frames and just added that box to the stack and closed up the hive entrance completely for 24 hours.  Friday morning, opened it back up and again placed the pine branch over the entrance.  By lunch time, not as many but still a couple thousand bees at the old location.    Ugh ……..come on girls! I had just transferred another swarm from a nuc into a ten frame hive so I set up the empty nuc for these lost bees.  Again, they poured right into it.  After sun down, I grabbed the nuc and walked em’ back to the mother hive.  Today we’re down to a couple hundred.  I’m guessing, a few more days of this and they’ll be good.  I think next time, I will move them a few miles away for a couple weeks and then move them back over to the bee yard. 

[iddee]

If you had just left them alone, the same amount would have been there each day. After 3 or 4 days, there will be none. They will all find their way home.

[LazyBkpr]

WOW!
   I havent had that happen yet, didnt expect to have that much of a problem, but your post will make me a little more cautious, and or nervous about moving a hive a short distance.. Thanks for posting that experience!

[rrog13]

Lazy…….this was a first for me.  I moved the nuc back and forth for a couple more days.  There are still about a hundred or so which are determined to cluster back at the old location.  Iddee ….I’m not so sure these gals would have chosen to find their way back to the new spot without some encouragement.   

[kebee]

 Last year I split a hive and moved it around two hundred feet or more from  the original hive and wound move it a few feet a day back to the yard, after about a month I had it to the yard and set it there, with in a week the bees had all gone back to the original hive, so the split died out. Said I would not do that again unless I could move them two a or three miles form the yard.

Ken

[riverbee]

i move all my divides and nucs 3 miles down the road or haul them back to my rural city suburb until they are strong enough to move back.  it works best for me.

[apisbees]

If you do not want to move the hive or nuc to another yard put in frams of capped brood that will emerge sooner. Shake bees off of frames of open brood 1 1/2 frames for each frame in the nuc. You will have transfered enough young bees that when the foragers return to the parent hive the split will still have a good population to cover the brood and populate the nuc. Don't block the bees from leaving the nuc as you could leave the parent hive with to few bees to care for the brood.

Sent from my LG-P500h using Tapatalk 2

[Bamabww]

Interesting. I've done the same thing but didn't have the problem you had. I moved mine about 200 yards though and used a cedar branch. Yep, that's the difference, the cedar branch.