Splitting hive & moving

[Landphil]

I was wondering if it was acceptable to move a new split to the other side (25-30') of my yard, away from their original hive location?  I would do this immediately after splitting.

[broke-t]

That won't be far enough.  The field bees will all go back to the original hive location.  It would be best to move the split at least 2 miles from the original site.

Johnny

[mtman1849]

If you want to pick up all of the field bees for the parent colony,  leave split in parent colony location and move parent colony.

[Michael Bush]

Just shake in twice as many bees as you want to make up for the drifting.  You can put it wherever you like.  Right next door. 30 feet away.  Put them where you want them to end up.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#accountfordrift

[Landphil]

Thanks for the advice, I was hoping that there was an alternative to moving them several miles away- a little drift between them will be fine.

[1of6]

I've done this two ways.

1)  Moved it all at once, used the branch method.  Works well if you make it convincing (blocked pretty majorly), but I'm starting to wonder if the branch becomes part of the landmark associated with the new location.  It seems like that might be the case. 

2)  Moved a little at a time.  I moved one hive the whole way across my yard in town by moving it 2 to 4 feet per day.  I simply took an extra two cinder blocks and went up to the hive in the evening after all the bees were back in, lifted it to the new block a couple feet over, then picked up the old set of blocks and leap-frogged them over to the other side of the hive, so they'd be ready for the next evening.  No re-orientation problems encountered, but it takes a while.  OH, and you can't use this method to move one hive past another.

Branch method works well.  I'd do it now rather than later, that way it was out of the way before they cluster tight.

[Michael Bush]

Keep in mind, if you don't move them two miles or more away, there will be more than "a little" drift.  Sometimes as much as half of them will drift.  That's why you need to shake in bees until you have about twice as many as you want to end up with.

[Moonshae]

I also found that the 3-day "rule" can be too short...some foragers seem to have better memories than others, and return to the original location, even if they were moved away for more than 3 foraging days. 10 yards is too far for them to relocate, so they end up dying. So...shake a lot of extra bees into the moved hive.

[Landphil]

Thanks for all of the replies.  I was originally just considering moving the "new" split away, but the nightly 3-4' answers another question I had about relocating established hives.  I will shake (coax, conjole, shoo) twice as many bees as I want to keep in the new split- thanks