How Accurate is the 3Ft 3Mile rule

[Steve H]

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
Newbie question time. As the thread tile says How accurate do you have to be with the 3 ft 3 mile rule?
The facts. after-looking for bees for what seems ages now. fiends have been contacting me this-morning asking me to tale away some "bees" Have to check that they are in fact bees first Obviously! my dilemma is if they are bees they are only 2.5 miles away as the bee flies. how should i go about re-homing these bees. thanks in advance for any suggestions

 

[meetballuk]

are they a swarm in which case it doesnt matter

 

[drex]

Just move them.

 

[Tremyfro]

If it helps.....I moved a colony about 150yds this spring. I had about 100 bees or so return to old hive position....where I had left an empty hive for them. None returned for several days after opening the moved hive as the weather was really bad....after that returners for only a few days....we collected them up.
I shut them in for several days and tied some fir branches in front of the hive...they had to scramble out! Removed the branches slowly over the following week.
I would think you would be ok with the distance...but you could leave a box for returners and go collect them after a few days.
This w/e is supposed to be heavy rain etc so might be a good time to move them.
If you shut them up make sure they are really well ventilated but I would think if you do the branches thing....you wouldn't need to shut them in.
The 3 feet/3 mile is a recommendation rather than a rule......and when a colony must be moved...you have a choice of moving them away to begin with for some weeks and then moving back to desired position or doing the above. I wonder how many bees are lost even when they are moved the 3 miles anyway.....how would you know? They may just get lost.
There are a number of utube videos about moving bees...worth watching.
I still have 2 colonies to move but will move those in the late autumn.

 

[Arfermo]

Within a million miles or so just about!!!

 

[Tom Bick]

You should be safe at 2.5 miles. Remember you are calculating in a straight line and not by road.

 

[wessexmario]

think of the reason... the 3 miles is so that a 'normal average' 1.5 mile foraging radius doesn't overlap with the previous foraging area.

If there is plenty of foraging closer than that at either or both locations, then pulling the distance in a little won't make much difference, if they don't need to fly so far they will be less likely to encounter old territory and absent mindedly head off back to the old location.

If it's a swarm, then for a day or two you can move them any distance no problem, as a swarm expects it's location to have changed. A natural swarm will have left a colony behind, so the odd absent minded bee will just rejoin it's old colony.

If needs really must, if you ignore the 3yards/mile rule, then what will happen is that many of the foragers will return to the old location, and either die or beg their way into another hive. That will mean less nectar and pollen being brought into the new location for a while, after that the nursery bees becoming foragers after 3 weeks will only know the new location as home.
(of course it will be a continuous transition with the age demographic, not a sudden 3-week change)

 

[Thymallus]

I have 2 sites 1.5 miles apart as the bee flies. I move hives between them with no problems to date.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
Newbie question time. As the thread tile says How accurate do you have to be with the 3 ft 3 mile rule?
The facts. after-looking for bees for what seems ages now. fiends have been contacting me this-morning asking me to tale away some "bees" Have to check that they are in fact bees first Obviously! my dilemma is if they are bees they are only 2.5 miles away as the bee flies. how should i go about re-homing these bees. thanks in advance for any suggestions

It's more of a guideline. Circumstances differ but as you already said in your post the first thing to check is what they really are. If it's a recent swarm just move them before they set their internal sat navs

 

[Finman]

.
I use 3 metres and 3 kilometres.

When I make an AS, minimum moving distant is 3 metres. Otherwise bees smell the old hive and they even walk towards the smell of old Queen. That have happened many times.

i have next yard 3 km (2 miles) away, and no bees return to home.

But it depends on landscape where bees use to forage and how they identify map.

If some bees return to home, put a nuc box to an old site. Then you see how much.

 

[itma]

think of the reason... the 3 miles is so that a 'normal average' 1.5 mile foraging radius doesn't overlap with the previous foraging area.

If there is plenty of foraging closer than that at either or both locations, then pulling the distance in a little won't make much difference, if they don't need to fly so far they will be less likely to encounter old territory and absent mindedly head off back to the old location.

If it's a swarm, then for a day or two you can move them any distance no problem, as a swarm expects it's location to have changed. A natural swarm will have left a colony behind, so the odd absent minded bee will just rejoin it's old colony.

If needs really must, if you ignore the 3yards/mile rule, then what will happen is that many of the foragers will return to the old location, and either die or beg their way into another hive. That will mean less nectar and pollen being brought into the new location for a while, after that the nursery bees becoming foragers after 3 weeks will only know the new location as home.
(of course it will be a continuous transition with the age demographic, not a sudden 3-week change)

Yes.

It isn't a "rule" it is a "rule of thumb" - a simplification offering a rough guideline.
For example, in narrow valleys, bees generally forage along the valley and rarely cross over into the next, so a move from one valley to the next can work perfectly well, even though far less than 3 miles on a map.

The 3 feet part similarly is a simplification. You can move a hive much more than 3 feet if it is 'backwards' (away from where the entrance faces) and remains in plain view.
However a move of less than 3 feet, from one side of a tall fence to the other, is going to lead to problems.

 

[Steve H]

Wow thanks such great responses, helpful and quick,just waiting for the landowner to get back to me, was hoping they would have rung whilst at work as i have to pass their front door on the way home.
thanks again for the fantastic response.