I made a nuc with a spare queen. Since I have a small suburban yard, I had to put it 20 feet from the origination hive. It's made from the bees of one hive, and a queen of another hive. Last year I tried this and a fatal majority of the bees went home. This year I've screened up the entrances. I'm hoping the bees will forget how to get to their original hive in a couple of days, and I can remove the screens.
Is this a reasonable method, or should I be doing something else? Do bees forget?
one thing that can help is to swap the location of the original hive with the location of the new. this can reverse the effects of drift back to the main hive. you can also put a branch or something similar in front of the new hive to help re-orient them to the new location. feeding the new hive can help. use an entrance reducer on the small setting to reduce robbing. the only problem i see with screening, is that you lose a couple of days of them being able to gather food. i would definitely feed any new hive, but especially one that can not get out and gather.