3ft 3Mile rule ?

[badger]

Hi,

If I wanted to split my hive and put a hive less than 1 mile away from my own hive, I would have to take the new hive more than three miles away to establish or they would return to the original hive.
How long would I have to keep them three miles away before I could bring them to their new site one mile away from my hive ?

Neil

 

[thurrock bees]

the 3 mile rule dont apply when you do a art swarm

 

[MuswellMetro]

if you move the nuc with Queen and brood/stores to the new site, so long as you shake in an extra frames of nurse bees and feed, it does not matter, only the old workers would return to the old hive as the nurse beees are non flyers until older

but if you need to move a hive a mile you could close up for three days ,feed 1:1 and then shield the entrance so that the bees cannot directly fly out for a few days...you can also put a nuc with comb on the old site to collect the straglers

 

[oliver90owner]

Yep, the 'three foot, three mile' rule is purely a 'rule of thumb'.

That is for moving any single hive and the rule is fairly 'bullet proof' inn that if you follow it there are really never any problems.

We often move hives within between values with impunity. One just needs to consider what the bees may do and take appropriate precautions. In this case, first para of MM's reply explains it all.

They may, or may not, return to the old site. If they were to fly back to the old site you may need to feed for a week or so - so that the colony has sufficient stores, in a useable form, with which to feed the developoing larvae - until the new foragers can take up the slack.

Regards, RAB