Well I just moved my hives across the yard yesterday. I have four of them and I decided that they should be on the other side of the yard so that I can expand my garden into the space that they were using. The space they are in now has more room to expand for more hives and it is space that I wasn't using for anything.
First I wanted to inspect them. Three of the hives have been doing well and one has been very weak. All were from swarms last year and the small one had no queen when I caught them so I had put some frames with eggs and brood in there and they had raised one from that. I found her and one of the other queens, but not the other two but all had eggs and brood!
Moving was a lot of work. I moved them about 40 yards. Did it just as described or fairly close to how Michael Bush has on his web site. They had been on these individual stands that I had made but the stands were coming apart so I lay 2 4x4X8s on top of three 4x4x3s, sort of like rail road tracks, then put the hives on top. Looks like it will work great. they are very close together so I might get some drift but my hive boxes are all different bright colors so maybe not.
after dark I went out and threw towels on top of the boxes I left behind and this morning put them on the hives in the new location with out a hitch. this afternoon Iwent back to remove the extra boxes and feed more pollen sub and more syrup. man were they hot! and angry. I got hit three times on the back of the neck just trying to get to my shed to get my suit!
there were some back at the old location and some seemed to be going back and forth. I put out a box for them for tonight. then hopefully tomorrow they will be reoriented. I put some of my prayer flags right in front of the entrances and also put some lattice leaning against some boards right up against the hives so that they have a bunchg of stuff to navigate on the way out so that they will reorient.
Got to go now more on how this goes tomorrow.
Alfred
Just my experience, get the box out of there (old location) ASAP. Get rid of any and all old stands etc. in the old location. Try not to leave anything there that has their "bee smell" on it.
You will loose only a very small percentage that way. The majority will reorient to the new location as long as they are disrupted when they come out the entrance.
Others may disagree, but it has worked for me.
I would only put a box at the old location near dark. That way they find nothing there but the insistent ones won't perish in the cold.
Quote from: rast on March 17, 2009, 09:33:51 PM
Just my experience, get the box out of there (old location) ASAP. Get rid of any and all old stands etc. in the old location. Try not to leave anything there that has their "bee smell" on it.
You will loose only a very small percentage that way. The majority will reorient to the new location as long as they are disrupted when they come out the entrance.
Others may disagree, but it has worked for me.
good post rast, I totally agree, its the only thing I ever found to work moving short distances. don't have nothing at the old location.
MB posted just before I did, as long as nothing is there including stand they will go back to hive, you might lose only a few but it want be a pile. if you might worry about them just go out after dark and see if any bee's are there clustered in the old location, if so then put a nuc down by them and when they pile in take them to the new hive and dump of shake at entrance, they will go in.
Thanks for the advice. I'll get rid of the box in the morning. I already got rid of everything else.
Alfred
well alfred what did you find?
I got rid of the box the next day and there were no bees in it like were on day 2. To be honest there weren't many in the boxes I had left behind on day 2 either. So I think that if I do this again, can't imagine why I would, I will just move it all in one fell swoop and leave nothing behind. Bees had no problem reorienting to the new location. Yesterday I moved the lattice and the boards and flags that I had put up for them to reorient.
The last two days I was out at their old location removing the electric fence I had around them. By the way it is quite a muscle job to get a 6 foot grounding rod out! The next fence I put up will have chicken wire on the ground for grounding! I got out the tiller, tilled the area and planted some spring vegies. stuff I have never tried before so I am psyched.
All the while I was doing this the girls would occaisionally come over and chase me off! Just two or three at a time. They would simply bump into me like they were trying to push me off. I'd be digging or tilling and I'd feel a bump, bumpy, bump, bump on my head or neck and I'd look up an there they were buzzing around me! Pretty goofy. None of them stung me, just bumping me.
They seemed pretty well settled into the new location but still a bit extra defensive if I got too close. I stood and watched for a few minutes, always mesmerizing, and it seemed like the ones who were bumping me were coming straight from the hives and were not, as I first suspected, lost foragers. This went on even after I had tilled the ground over and over again, so there simply couldn't have been any more bee smell.
So there is the whole report it wasn't really that big a deal so I am not sure why people make it so. The trick seems to be that you just need to put stuff in their way to trigger reorientation and then all will be well.
Alfred
Thanks for the report. That's how we learn what works and what doesn't.