Moving hives short distances

[Kaisa]

My hives are to the north of a small building and I'd like to move them to a sunnier location nearby for overwintering but I hear I've got to take them a couple of km away, then bring them back once they've forgotten where they were before.  Is this true also for this time of year when they are hardly ever out?

Thanks,
Kaisa 

[FRAMEshift]

No, you do not have to move them a long distance.   The foragers will be confused when they try to come back to a hive and the hive is not there.  They might take up residence in a different hive from where they started out, but that is not a disaster.  

To reduce the problem, you can move the hives in the evening after the foragers have come in for the night.  If possible, close off the entrances before you move them so all the bees are inside.  Then re-open the entrances and place some obstruction in front of each entrance so the bees have to change direction as they come out.  This will encourage them to do an orientation flight and re-learn the location of their hive.

There are lots of ways to do this.  I just lean an old board against the hive so as to partially block the entrance.  Some people place twigs or sticks or pine straw in front of the entrance.  Anything to make them rethink their location.  Leave the obstruction in place for a couple of days so all the foragers have a chance to re-orient.

The reason folks used to say that you had to move hives a long distance is that when you move them a couple of miles the change in sun angle is enough to trigger re-orientation.  But that's the hard way to do it.  

[rdy-b]

**The reason folks used to say that you had to move hives a long distance is that when you move them a couple of miles the change in sun angle is enough to trigger re-orientation.  But that's the hard way to do it.**


 where did you come up with this one--never heard this --but i will buy it for a dollar-- ;) RDY-B 

[FRAMEshift]

where did you come up with this one--never heard this --but i will buy it for a dollar-- ;) RDY-B  

No please, take it for free.   :-D    If you move the hives 100 ft. the bees don't reorient as they come out and they lose track of where the hive is.  To get them to reorient without an obstruction, you have to move them far enough so they can resolve a difference between where the sun is and where their internal clock says it should be.   One of those things that, when I first heard it, I just said.... yeah, I should have thought of that.

I read once exactly what the bees angular resolution on the sun is but I don't remember it now.  So I don't know exactly how far you have to move the hives.  The number I usually hear is 2 miles but I don't know if that is true.

[rdy-b]

* The number I usually hear is 2 miles but I don't know if that is true.*

 yea forage radius-bees can find there way back from anywhere in that radius

 but yes time of day has alot to do with the angle of the sun --ever notice that all the swarm
 calls come in at about the same time in morning and evening-so it doses trigger a reaction
  :)  RDY-B

[rdy-b]

if the move is not a great distance you could move them in several small moves
 ten feet at a time(over a period of a few days)-also what your asking about the bees not flying much this time
 of year would come into play if they where inside for at-least 3 days- after 3 days
they forget and have to reorient-there are times when we have fog for weeks at
 a time and that is a perfect opportunity for us to move hives around in the bee yard
 without the problems of wayward bees loosing there bearings--RDY-B

[FRAMEshift]

if the move is not a great distance you could move them in several small moves
 ten feet at a time-

I think that depends on where the hives are relative to each other.  The bees will probably go to the hive that is closest to the old position so long as the entrance is facing the same direction.  The bees know where the old entrance was withing a few inches. 

[rdy-b]

 hard to say we dont know the exact circumstance
 but there is a old beekeeper saying THREE FEET OR THREE MILES
  :) RDY-B

[jajtiii]

I move hives all of the time - 3', 30', 300', 30 miles. Never have a problem.

Of note, I did remove a queen from a Nuc in my backyard once (I inadvertently let them expand too much before I got around to either selling them or putting them in a full Deep). I took the Queen (with the frame of bees she was on - that's key to this odd story) to an outyard some 25 miles away and combined them with a weak hive (whacked the old queen before I introduced the new one, of course).

I left them out there for about a month (maybe less) and went out to check and found more queen cells along with my traveling queen (I should have figured out that there was a problem, but I was still learning...). So, I grabbed the queen along with two frames of bees/brood and took them back to my backyard to start a new Nuc (I really loved this queen, clearly...)

When I put them back (a month later) in my backyard, I placed them in an open spot, which happened to be about 50' from where the queen had originally been before I had moved her out to the country a month earlier.

Folks probably won't believe me, but within about 30 minutes, I had about 50 bees trying to find a hive at the OLD SPOT! At first, I honestly didn't know what the heck was going on. The wild thing is that they REMEMBERED the old location.

At any rate, none were there the next day and all was good (the queen was finally killed by some bees.)

[CapnChkn]

In June I had a hive of neurotic bees.  I got into their brood nest, and they wouldn't leave me alone after that.  I had to take them someplace just to keep from getting stung when I walked out into the yard.  I ended up taking them into the trees about a hundred feet from where they were originally, knowing they would have some issues with the old location.

Bees navigate by landmarks, and travel by autopilot.  If they leave a hive without reorienting, they'll just go back to the old location and clot there.  I left a nuc hoping they would go inside and when they had "gone to sleep," I would move the nuc to the new location.  It worked once.

Since there was another hive located there, the foragers drifted to that hive and kicked up that population to the point the 5 frames they were on at the time had them hanging off the outside and bearding at the entrance.  I moved them into a deep and left them be.  Not that it helped my problem walking around the yard, the foragers in that hive kept after me until they all died.

I split that nut-case hive and gave them a gentle queen thinking I would pinch the old one, but then changed my mind when I saw the behavior they demonstrated toward a small hive beetle.  I moved the split nuc to the original location by first moving it a few feet a day until they were about 25 or 30 feet from the hive I split from, then closed them in and put them next to the hive with the drifted foragers.

I then took some branches with leaves that had fallen out of the trees and lain there long enough to have turned brown but not fallen off, and draped that over the entrance so the bees would have to crawl through them to get out.  I went back to the location where I had moved the bees from, and there were bees flying around but not staying.  I didn't have any drift with this procedure.

[Kaisa]

Thanks for all the great answers.  It sure saves me a lot of work.

Kaisa

[FRAMEshift]

I move hives all of the time - 3', 30', 300', 30 miles. Never have a problem.

If you moved a hive 30' or 300' the foragers probably ended up in another hive.  Usually not a disaster.  If you move a weak hive and it loses all It's foragers (and guard bees) you can trigger robbing since nobody is left to defend the hive.  New guard bees will appear within a week.

[FRAMEshift]

Not that it helped my problem walking around the yard, the foragers in that hive kept after me until they all died.

I made a hive very angry with me once.  They would attack me when I walked into the bee yard.  This continued for about a week.  I interpreted it as the guard bees at the time of my intrusion were locked in to attack mode.  After a week they graduated to foragers and the new guards didn't hold a grudge.   :-D   You must have REALLY made your hive mad.

[rdy-b]

interesting---but when we move hives just before sunset we lose some of the field force for a short
period-and we also take note that the bees are mellow after the move-it is the old field bees that are
the mean bees in the hive-- we set out trap hives to catch the old field bees if we didnt do that it would
 be a problem - :) -RDY-B

[Vance G]

Just wait until your first real cold snap.  After they have been inside because of cold for a week just move them and if you do it smoothly on a cold day, they won't even come out.  When they do, they will be home.

[Shanevrr]

If you had to move and Ive read this works,  screen entrance late in evening almost dark.  Move in the morning to new location.  Most hives have there side on where they enter and exit.  Change that with an entrance reducer and then get a branch and put in front of hive so they have to fly around it or through it.  They will realize this is new and differant then will reorient themselves to new location.

[Michael Bush]

The biggest issue this time of year is the weather.  In the summer it's almost always warm enough at night that even if they don't find their way to the hive a cluster on the ground will be ok.  And you can put a box there after dark right next to them and they will most likely find their way in and then you can take them to the new location and in a day or two things will be fine.  But in cold weather they could get chilled before they have time to sort things out.  So if the nights are expected to be above 50 F I don't see a problem.  But if they are expected to be less, you could lose some bees.

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

[Shanevrr]

Good point, and now that I think about I read that info on your site a long time ago.  I suggested that to a customer in store and he said it works great.  He said he had a few go back to old location but nothing to speak of.

[FRAMEshift]

But in cold weather they could get chilled before they have time to sort things out.  So if the nights are expected to be above 50 F I don't see a problem.  But if they are expected to be less, you could lose some bees.

If it's after a hard freeze and the forage is gone, do you really care if you lose the foragers?  They are eating more than they are bringing in.  Are they important enough for cluster heating that you want to keep them?