I hived my nucs two days ago. I had to redo the stand as it wasn't long enough for three ten frames, but had one ten frame and two 5 f. Nucs. So I moved them temp. And set the stand up, moved them back and let them settle for a few hours as they were all over in the air. When I came back everything was calm so I proceeded with the transfer. Now the exact location of the new entrances may be off by a little but no more than a foot. The new hives are in the same order they were before, 1,2,3 side by side with a few inches in between, just as before. The middle one has very little foragers and when I went in to feed them all today, the other two drank all there syrup but the middle one was stillpretty full with only about 5 bees up there drinking. This hive also was the only one that I found the queen in when I was doing the transfer, so I know she was good then.
My question is that would that confuse them enough to go to a ddifferent hive and would that new hive accept them? I am not too worried about it since one hive is doing so well that I can steal some brood/stores from it if I have too.
some research has shown that that something distinguishing on the front of the hive helps prevent drifting. an x of white tape on the ctr hive could be enough in a 3 hive scenario.
I thought when they got in the general area they went by smell? I don't know that's why I'm asking.
From experience, 3's don't work, the middle always suffers. If you can, spread them apart, but definitely turn the outboard hives so the entrances are at a thirty degree angle of the middle.
Take the strongest hive and swap it with the weakest, you might have to shake a couple frames of bees from the other hive (find the queen first) at the entrance (the bees that haven't orientated will crawl into the hive), to give them a shot in the arm
Rookie,
This week I removed a hive, a 20" diameter log and all from a guys front yard. I was told that it was lowered down from its original 50' height. After cutting the log into a small enough section to lift into my truck, with help, and getting it into the truck, I rechecked the log that was left on the branch and realized that I hadn't cut through tree rot but it was badly collapsed comb. The next day I cut the comb out and it was all destroyed. I enticed the surviving bees into a nuc and then placed it on top of a week hive. Last night I opened that nuc and shook all of the bees out. They returned to the weak hive and slowly moved it with a little help from a LGO q-tip on the front of the hive. No fights or any problems. This added approximately 500-1000 bees to this hive. I am pretty sure they were all full of honey from the damaged comb which helps them to bee accepted.
Jim
Rober- I was thinking something like putting big a black square, triangle and circle on each.
Rwlaw- I have them inside a dog kennel sized area for now, until I build up some more hives. I didn't want animals getting to them and destroying them my first year. I really don't have much more room in there.
Jim- I quess they did get accepted, since they sure aren't coming and going like before. It was probably easier to get accepted with few at a time also. Im sure I will have to add some frames of bees, since I only have about 1.5 months until frost. Probably this weekend.
Gary- I dont know about the smell either.
I've got an old iron brick star that I painted red & hung it on the front of the ctr hive of 3 hives. all 3 hives are doing fine. there's about 14" between the hives. you'll get some drifting no matter what but it's usually not enough to matter.