Moving hives 20m

[witchcraft]

I have two hives that need to be moved 20m across rough farm land (one has just donated a swarm to my third hive which is in the new location) . The farmer has asked me to do it.

Is there any other way, other than what I am currently doing of moving them a metre a week - over some rough clay hardcore (which isn't nice at the moment rather resembling the Somme). Ideally I'd like to close them up one night, move them and then open up and then force reorientation somehow.

The non-swarmed hive is booked for a shook swarm soon to get it off some awful old comb - could I integrate this somehow with the move?

(I realise the swarm donor colony should not be touched for three weeks or so to get the virgin queen mated and laying.)

Any help appreciated

Mark

 

[drstitson]

move away to another site then back?
or just go for it and use grass in entrance and a board in the way to force reorientation.

perhaps should have done it before mondays brighter weather!

BTW until queen emerges and starts flying you're ok to move the hive BUT carefully to avoid damge to QC.

 

[JKWebber]

At a recent lecture I attended it was suggested by the speaker that you could move hives a short distance, if in the process you turned the brood box 180 degrees with respect to the opening, what was the front of the hive is now the back, the bees follow there usual path out find it blocked, eventually finding the new opening realise there is a change and reorientate with the new opening, attendees were divided with this idea.

 

[witchcraft]

Thanks both - I think I'll move them on the next wet and cold day and obstruct the entrances. I'll report back

 

[For want of a better word]

Thanks both - I think I'll move them on the next wet and cold day and obstruct the entrances. I'll report back

November ... hopefully?

 

[Finman]

.
It isbetter to move 2 miles away.
If you do all kinds of tricks wht guys invent, the result is that bees return to the old site. Then they have not time to search new hive location in miserable weather. You will loose half of your bees.
Don't even try.

 

[Skyhook]

I've heard it suggested that you can move further than 3' if the hive approach is more distinctive. Soeone had had success in a similar situation with putting a plank in front of the entrance' like a runway, leaving it a few days for them to learn, then moving several metres/day. They could still identify the shape with the plank.

 

[TheDragons]

I recently moved my hive approx 100m with help from the Forum. I was advised to close and block (use grass) the entrance at night, move into the new position and by the time they'd moved the grass out the way they would be orientated to the new position. Using an OMF and propping branches at the entrance were also suggested.
I did all of this and they were kept inside for 3 days (the miserable weather also helped...)
I found very few returned to the old site (less than 100) but quite a lot left the hive but couldn't get back in (The new hive site was 180 degrees different - ie the entrance faced the opposite way). Prehaps if I had to do it again I would turn the hive by only 90 degrees? Otherwise successful. Good luck!

 

[witchcraft]

I recently moved my hive approx 100m with help from the Forum. I was advised to close and block (use grass) the entrance at night, move into the new position and by the time they'd moved the grass out the way they would be orientated to the new position. Using an OMF and propping branches at the entrance were also suggested.
I did all of this and they were kept inside for 3 days (the miserable weather also helped...)
I found very few returned to the old site (less than 100) but quite a lot left the hive but couldn't get back in (The new hive site was 180 degrees different - ie the entrance faced the opposite way). Prehaps if I had to do it again I would turn the hive by only 90 degrees? Otherwise successful. Good luck!

Thanks I'll give it a go - possibly when warm weather is forecast, they need to be only moved 90 degrees too so that should work

Mark

 

[Hebeegeebee]

You can move a metre each flying day; if a good day you can move more than once. Still a faff though!
I do expect that you could move more than a metre if the hive is in an open field. Not done it though.

 

[itma]

You can move a metre each flying day; if a good day you can move more than once. Still a faff though!
I do expect that you could move more than a metre if the hive is in an open field. Not done it though.

You can move it a little more than a metre (maybe two metres?) IF

- the hive is distinctively bee-visible (maybe easier if its two hives, close together?) as they don't seem to have good distance vision
- you've moved it "backwards" so that returning bees discover that the hive entrance is just a little further away than they expected
- and you don't rotate and move at the same time. (start by rotating only, until its in the right orientation to 'back away')


Rotation and entrance-covering and 48-hour-lockdown should help them notice when they emerge that they have moved a decent distance but less than 3 miles, but I wouldn't rely on those tricks for a short move (20 metres) ... let alone repeated very short (plural metres) moves.


/ doing an AS might be a way to move the main hive with brood in one move, and then slowly move the flying bees (lighter box), before recombining at the new site?

 

[johnmcc]

I did this to one of my hives last year. Moved it 15 yards, kept the orientation the same (facing south-east) and put an old Christmas tree growing in a pot right in front of the hive to force the colony to reorientate. I reduced the entrance to one small hole, but I didn't block it right up. There were a very few bees back at the old site for a couple of days, but that was all. Job done, hive moved, bees working, and 2 months later honey taken.

I probably haven't learned much in three years of beeking, but I have learned that there are usually several different ways of doing something with bees, and that each of these ways will have lots of people telling you not to do them. I've adopted as my motto "suck it and see".

(I also believe that many beekeepers can start an argument in a sealed room with no-one else there!)

 

[Finman]

.
Okay. Vain to debate with 2-hive owners high experience(s).
Bees are yours. Do what you want.

I would do that if day temps are 25C. But now your temps are near 10 C. Bees go into choma in that temp.

If wind direction is proper, bees stink the new home location and foragers learn to flye more or less directry to the new site in 2 hours. But those who go out next day and nex day, theyhave heir original geographic map in their head and they to their original site.

When it is cold, the bee lands onto groud and it stays there passivly.

That is the idea of artificial swarm. Bees move by itself to the new hive to the old site.
That amout you may loose bees. And ifllucky rain shower onto the neck.

With my 50 y experience, i would not do that. But they are only bees...to hell 10 feets or 2 mile rules....old farts stories

."I have heard" that is highest experience what you can get.

 

[Finman]

I did this to one of my hives last year. Moved it 15 yards, kept the
I probably haven't learned much in three years of beeking, but I have learned that there are usually several different ways of doing something with bees, and that each of these ways will have lots of people telling you not to do them. I've adopted as my motto "suck it and see".

(I also believe that many beekeepers can start an argument in a sealed room with no-one else there!)

when you knowlittle you know all....

W hive owner's 3 y experience. I can see from your text how uch you have learned.

I have just now Uk weather here. Temp is about 10C. Bees visited in willows 5 hours ago. It was calm then. Now it is sunshine but wind speed is 8 m/s on weather station 10 miles away.

.

 

[Finman]

You can move it a little more than a metre (maybe two metres?) IF

- the hive is distinctively bee-visible (maybe easier if its two hives, close together?) as they don't seem to have good distance vision
- you've moved it "backwards" so that returning bees discover that the hive entrance is just a little further away than they expected
- and you don't rotate and move at the same time. (start by rotating only, until its in the right orientation to 'back away')


Rotation and entrance-covering and 48-hour-lockdown should help them notice when they emerge that they have moved a decent distance but less than 3 miles, but I wouldn't rely on those tricks for a short move (20 metres) ... let alone repeated very short (plural metres) moves.


/ doing an AS might be a way to move the main hive with brood in one move, and then slowly move the flying bees (lighter box), before recombining at the new site?

that is sad humbug.

Bees remember one month the landscape.

If you move hives away 2 miles and return them to the new place, you will see a cloud of bees on old site.

Yes I know because I have done it. I have returned my hives in a month later to my home yard. The bee cloud tells what was the original place of the hive.

I have moved hives 10 m many times but weathers must be good.
I have not thinked what happens to virgin queens after that trick.

I have seen too that when queen makes mating flights, it remembers the hive place after 4 weeks when it run away from my fingers and return to its rasberry bush nuc.



.

 

[itma]

...
Bees remember one month the landscape.

If you move hives away 2 miles and return them to the new place, you will see a cloud of bees on old site.

Yes I know because I have done it. I have returned my hives in a month later to my home yard. The bee cloud tells what was the original place of the hive.

We are in absolute agreement on that.
In fact, I think that with the present bad weather, many flying workers, staying inside rather than flying until exhausted, will live for more than a month as foragers.
And if they live long enough to be taken back to the neighbourhood of their old home, quite a lot of those flyers will indeed go back to the old hive site.
I think that in this poor weather, you'd have to allow well over a month away.

Tricks like entrance obstruction and changing hive direction will help when making a simple single move of perhaps two (rather than three) miles. ( / I referred to "a decent distance", possibly causing misunderstanding)
But I absolutely agree that these tricks will have no effect whatsoever on the move-and-move-almost-back scenario. / I hope nobody thought I was saying they would!

And a different set of tricks are needed to move the hive perhaps two or three metres (rather than one metre) every flying day. The important tricks for extending these tiny movements are moving the hive backwards, and making the hive obvious to the bees (so don't move it close to a bush, for example).


But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of combining this 20m move with an artificial swarm.
Take the brood (and their heavy hive) to the new site in one move (and you don't have to go the direct route through the mud!)
Let the flyers return to the Queen in a light hive on the old site. Then move the light hive, in small stages to the new site, where they could be recombined as required.
I prefer the idea of moving a light hive, rather than a heavy hive, for the small steps over difficult ground.

 

[Finman]

.
You may do a movement. Then put on old site a hive which collect all returners. That hive must have one broof frame.

Then look what happens and move those returners to the place 2 miles away.

.i bet that you get a big hive.

.

 

[johnmcc]

Getting accustomed to coming on here for my daily insult! Not sure why I got "Okay. Vain to debate with 2-hive owners high experience(s)" from Finman since the first thing I said in the second para of my post was "I probably haven't learned much in three years". I simply related what I did to move a hive a short distance - and it worked. Not my idea - I found it on an American website. And it's obviously daft doing it if the weather's cold.

But when I read this "that is sad humbug" a few posts later aimed at itma I assume there's a language problem.. If so, fine. If not - don't be so rude!

 

[Finman]

. Not my idea - I found it on an American website. And it's obviously daft doing it if the weather's cold.

- don't be so rude!

I have moved hives 45 years. In summer I move all my hives from cottage yard. i join hives and move them short distances in very cold weathers.

Yes, in American forum there are many kind of inventors. I know them. Thousands of posts in one year and they hardly know nothing about beekeeping.


Am I rude when I say that don't destroy your hives.
Am I rude if I say liken some guys here: let it go. They are only bees. Dady loves dady pays.

I had kept seven years 20 hives and then I learned so much that no big surprises appeared any more.

.like in mold in frames. Experienced guys here offred what ever chemicals to the hive. Fact is that hives handle themselves all mold promblems. But how to tell it to blockheads. Then same guys are afraid to give oxalic acid to arroa.

.

 

[itma]

.
You may do a movement. Then put on old site a hive which collect all returners. That hive must have one broof frame.

Then look what happens and move those returners to the place 2 miles away.

.i bet that you get a big hive.

.

That isn't anything like what the OP is wanting to do.


He's just wanting to move his hives 20 metres.

Perhaps you misunderstood.

I've suggested that an individual move can be slightly more than 1 metre, *if* the hive is moved backwards, not sideways, not forwards, *and* the hive is in plain, unobstructed, unobscured view directly in front of returning bees.
I didn't think you'd disagree with that.

I've also suggested that 'tricks' (like DrStitson's grass entrance-blocking suggestion, and the idea of hive direction change) that are appropriate to a much longer (but less than 3 miles) move should not be relied upon to get bees to settle after a short (like 20 metres) move.
And I didn't think that you would disagree with that either.

But, I do know I'm not always right!