Out of sheer ignorance we moved a hive about 30 ft. across the backyard to a
better location.  The bees didn't think so. Hundreds and hundreds stayed at
the original sight, even overnight.  We scooped them up and brought them to
the new site.  They flew back.  We even vacuumed up some because so many
insisted on staying.  They flew back.  Since there were so many, we decided
that if we couldn't beat them, split the hive.  So we put down a new hive.  By
the hundreds they were marching in the entrance even before I could put the
frames in.  We took two frames from the very productive first hive, still at
the new location, and placed them, along with the bees on them (since they
were all from the same "family" anyway), and waited. Within a few days they
had built up queen cells, reared their own queen, and by fall (it was already
late June), it was a thriving hive which even produced a few pounds of extra
honey and is still well to this day. Because we were so new to all of this, we
had not known how to go about splitting a hive and had not wanted to since the
original hive had been from a swarm that we caught from our very first colony
from the year before.  So we learned from our mistakes and even ended up
benefiting, although I would not recommend making the same mistakes we did
because it could have turned out very badly too!
 
Bev in NJ (USA)