Advice on moving hives

[sc-bee]

Very helpful. I need to move a colony from a swarm trap back into a hive and put them about 100ft from where they are. I've been worried and thought I might need to move them in baby steps.

How long have they, the swarm, been in the location that they are in? A swarm is a different situation. My Father-in-law has over 20 years with bees and now is A bee instructor and he just helped his neighbor with a swarm. They ended up in his garage in side a hive box that had 2 drawn foundations and the rest were frames with foundation. As soon as most of them were in the box he added a cover and a bottom board and moved it within a couple of feet of where the original hive was. A swarm does not return to the original hive in this situation.
Jim

Correct if you are housing a swarm. Different if the swarm was caught in a trap and have set up house already.

Here is a link courtesy of MB: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmoving.htm

[Danger Brown]

Thanks guys. I didn't go into detail as it isn't my thread and wasn't looking to hijack it.

But the situation is that Shawn called me up with a swarm in one of his trees. He didn't need the swarm as was generous enough to let me take them home in a new hivebox I built.

They stayed there for about 30 hours then swarmed again. They moved about 60 feet to one of the 3 swarm traps I quickly built the night before.
Now they have been in the swarm trap for about a week. I was hesitant to re-hive them until they had some brood. So I haven't been in a hurry, but figured I'd do a cutout and move them into a proper hive after they'd been in the trap for 2-3 weeks. Also, I've delayed because I'm building and painting hives and wanted to finish their pretty new home before moving them.

P.S. I'm a total newbie. And I've built 11 top-bar hives and plan to fill them up this summer from cutouts, trapouts, swarms and splits. Also, I'm planning on building some nucs and attempting to winter them to cover losses.

[sc-bee]

>Thanks guys. I didn't go into detail as it isn't my thread and wasn't looking to hijack it.

Your question was on moving bees --- you did not hi-jack the thread or attempt to ---- you piggybacked on the thread :flyingpig:

As I originally gathered from your post, the swam has set up in a trap, they have set up home, move them as you would an established hive.

[Todd Eury]

I moved a hive last weekend less than 1 mile. I put a cedar branch in front of the entrance for two days and placed a nuc box at the old location just in case. No bees returned to the old location. The branch method works.