Three feet or three miles

[REDWOOD]

how have you found these new pheromones to differ from the original pheromones?

9-hda

 

[midnight sun]

One book you will find of interest is Honeybee Democracy. A swarm consists of young and old bees. A small number of old foragers change from foraging, to looking for new sites. A fair amount of the young bees can fly but have never been outside of the hive before they swarm. 60 years of research.

Even easier for those who don't like reading.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnnjY823e-w"]Tom Seeley: Honeybee Democracy - YouTube[/ame]

Enjoy Dave

 

[mintmoth]

One book you will find of interest is Honeybee Democracy. A swarm consists of young and old bees. A small number of old foragers change from foraging, to looking for new sites. A fair amount of the young bees can fly but have never been outside of the hive before they swarm. 60 years of research.

That's interesting. I had assumed that it was just the older bees who went with the swarm, leaving the young ones with the old hive.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I've been looking for another interesting bee book to read. On my 22nd so far, the ABC and XYZ by A.I.Root, but it's the kindle edition, scanned but not spell-checked, so at times "translating" it from gobbledygook is a puzzler

Good question, first, sometimes they do return home if the queen was clipped but if they make it to a new home a whole new ball game for the bees, democracy and a new set of pheromones resets everything.
If you notice when you hive a swarm there is a period of time when they are fanning and when they are all in it is quite some time before they start foraging again. I call it the reset period and there is probably some scientific name for it but unknown to me.

I like your idea of a "reset period" Redwood. That would explain why they stay put.

Even easier for those who don't like reading.

Tom Seeley: Honeybee Democracy - YouTube

Enjoy Dave

Thanks for the video, Dave, it makes fascinating viewing, very interesting. Deffo must get the book

 

[Bosleeu]

Personally, I don't take too much notice of that piece of wisdom - I move the hives as far as I need to (at night) within the same site, and put a thick Leylandii branch in front of the hive for a few days.

The other way of doing it - especially at this time of the year, or later - is to seal the hive entrance for a few days. I find that four days is usually enough to erase short-term memory, but a longer period certainly wouldn't hurt.

If you put a box back at the old site, you'll soon know if your strategy has worked ok.

LJ

This is what I find as well. I use a brightly coloured square of plastic in front of the hive.