Hi All
 
I move my bees around quite a bit from time to time and have noticed
that the following tips help (gleaned from old books on tropical
beekeeping with a different race of bees).
 
If one seals a strong hives up one damages brood present in it as the
bees raise the hive temperature in reposnes to the excess carbon
dioxide that accumulates.
 
What I do is as follows - I lift the lid of each hive and smoke it
heavily. This gives one about twenty minutes before the bees realise
something is going on. I pack all smalll hives as is, with entrances
pointing back and forwards alternately. Then for larger hives I put a
super with no frames in it on the hive body. I fire the smoker up
nicely and put it near the front of the vehicle with the lid on after
giving each hvie a few good toots of smoke.
 
The reason for this method - I found that if the bees were not
smoked they would attack me firstly, each hive giving at least thrity
night crawler stings (the worst) and then they would cover the
outside of the bee box and begin an interhive  meaning when one gets
to the other end there are thousands of dead bees covering the bottom
of the truck.
 
In this way I have found it to be no problem moving bees reasonably
long distances along bumby dirt tracks at night. It also helps to
move during a cold front or similar climatic drop in temperature and
to have a vehicle with shot shock absorbers.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
6139
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
 
If you are not living on the edge you are taking up too much space!!