moving my hive's

[lee]

i had to move three hive's won't do that again. the frist two was ok. but the last one was he--  i got stung about 10 times. and we did it at night time to.  now there is a lot of bee at the old spot , how do i get them back in the hives. move the hive's  about 200 feet. thanks

[thegolfpsycho]

Put an mty box back where the old hive was sitting.  Each evening, take the box and "combine" it with the parent hive.  After about 3 days, you should have all or most of them back in the right box.

[stilllearning]

Best way to prevent this problem is to move the hives more than 200 feet
I will not move less than 3 miles wait 2 or 3 days then you can put them
back where you want them.  Bees forage over a large area and they
orient themselves to landmarks near the hive, this is the reason they come back to the old location. You moved a short distance at night
and some of the bees did not realize you had moved them the next
morning, the did not re orient them selves to the new location.

[Phoenix]

Moving the colony a short distance is not recommended for the reason you discovered.  If you absolutely have to move them like this, it is best to put a branch of leaves in front of the entrance in order to trigger the foragers to re-orient themselves to their new surroundings.  You may still have a few that return to the old location, but not many.  

One of the many common phrases amongst beekeepers:

Move a hive less than 3 feet or more than 3 miles.

[lee]

i had a empty deep so i put it where one of the hives was. there must bee about 3 thousand bees by this hive. do i let them stay there or put them with another hive. help one big

[stilllearning]

i had a empty deep so i put it where one of the hives was. there must bee about 3 thousand bees by this hive. do i let them stay there or put them with another hive. help one big

That is a lot of bees, quite a loss to the orginal hive.  If they are in the empty deep, I would put it on top of the orginal hive that they came from,
then put something in front of the orginal entrance to make it extremely
different so they might re orient themselves, I really think your best
bet is put the deep on top of orginal hive and move them farther away if the orginal hive loses that many bees it will suffer.

[thegolfpsycho]

A good point is being made.  You need to make them reorient.  Stuff the entrance full of grass, put a leafy branch across the entrance to encourage it.

[Michael Bush]

Anytime you move you have to trigger reorientation.  Even IF I moved them 3 miles I'd still put a branch in front of the new location just so they don't head straight out the door and get a long ways before they realize they aren't at the old location.  I also would put an empty box at the old location just before dark.  I wouldn't put it there much before, because I want them to try to find the new hive.  Then I'd move the empty box next to the new hive and put a branch in front of it too.

I move them less than two miles all the time.  As long as you trigger reorientation it works pretty well.  If you don't it works very badly.