Move hive less than a meter or more than a mile

[triscleeire]

I have heard that a few time now.
My bees swarmed and unfortunately settled in an older hive that I just finished cleaning and blow torching right on my veranda at the house. Not an ideal location.
What will actually happen if I moved that hive at night to another location less than 100m away from its current one?
Thanks a lot for your comments.

 

[The Poot]

I have heard that a few time now.
My bees swarmed and unfortunately settled in an older hive that I just finished cleaning and blow torching right on my veranda at the house. Not an ideal location.
What will actually happen if I moved that hive at night to another location less than 100m away from its current one?
Thanks a lot for your comments.

If you move them immediately after they arrived and settled, it would not have been an issue. If they’ve been there long enough to become fixed on the location, you will need to observe the “rule”. (As far as I know!)

 

[JamezF]

I believe the "rule" is really just a "guideline".

I've posted before that a couple of years ago I was called by a farmer to who'd had the limbs of a tree left in his field. They'd been cut from an oak in the hedgeline that the council had decided had become unsafe, and the contractor had cut through a bough containing a nest of honey bees. I'd estimate that the section containing the nest was around ten metres from its original position, but when I arrived late that afternoon there were no bees hunting around the tree and workers were flying into and out of the nest in its new position quite happily. It certainly appeared that the flying bees all found their way "home" quite happily.

I'd guess that perhaps if the bees find all their familiar "landmarks" have changed close to the site of their nest (as presumably is the case when most of the tree containing it is chopped down) then they may adopt a different method for finding it whereas if those landmarks still exist then they continue to navigate to the site they know.

James

 

[Beth]

I haved moved nucs 3-4 metres from the hive they were drawn from, stuffed grass in the entry. Still plenty bees in them the next morning. I think bees are smarter than we give them credit for as far, as finding where their colony is.