Reorienting

[Moonshae]

I have to preface my question with a little backstory. Last summer, my grill died. It has two wooden "wings" on it, where you can put plates or whatever as a ledge while you move food on or off the grill. After it died, I took a few frames from my hives and made two nucs, and I kept them on these ledges, accounting for drift and all. If you followed my questions and reports about my overwintering nucs, these were what it was all about.

So. This year, I also made two nucs, and have kept them in the same spot. However, these were nucs from my outyard, so they were two miles away, and no drifting issues needed preventing.

We're now planning to buy a new grill (I knew we would do this, but the ledges were the "nuc spot"), so I'll have to move them or risk overheating them due to proximity, something I won't even chance. If I put on my nuc top feeders and give them 1/4 of a pollen patty, and screen closed the entrance for 3 days (or more?), will that be enough? I'd like to move them to my front yard...trying to gradually accustom my neighbors to seeing beehives. Ultimately, I'd like to keep a full hive in the front yard, but that might be a year or two away. After this year, I'll have a better idea of what my area can support and how many hives I can keep here at the house.

If it matters, I have the betterbee nucs, with a screened 3/4" hole in the front and back on top, and another hole in the front on the bottom, which can be reduced with a disk to 4 states...open, bumblebee excluder, queen excluder, and screened closed. Obviously, the screened closed setting is what I'd use. The front of the house gets the hot afternoon sun. I could shade them without too much trouble, though.

[doak]

I Had sold 3 colonies to an old gentleman a couple years ago not knowing he was not supposed to buy anything.
Poor fellow, he was loosing it and would go buy enough corn seed to plant 100 acres.
Any how, I had to go back and retrieve the bees and bring them back home in about three or four days.
I wanted to rearrange them and didn't want to put them in the same spot.
I got two several feet away from their old spot but ended up with one next door to its old spot. This is the only colony that did not reorient. They went back to their old spot.
But luck was with me, It was a week colony that needed strengthened.

Move the nuc/colony to the new spot and put some brush just in front about as high as the hive.

Or I have heard you can close them up with screen wire and store them in a dark place for 3 or 4 days then take them to their new location.

They go by the area out away from the immediate location some distance as well.
If possible turn the entrance 15 degrees or more from the direction it was at the old location.
doak

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmoving.htm