Not sure if I should be asking this on the list or not ...  I have noticed that the discussion topics increasingly are at the smart end and my question is kind of basic.....

I keep my bees in two locations.  One is a farm in the hills.  I use only one part of the farm but I am considering to take a second location since the plants and fruit trees are quite different to where I am.  The distance between the two locations is not great as a straight line, probably 800 meters ..  perhaps a little more.  The terrain is intense, the new location is a separate valley and the valley sides are really steep.

I will be splitting hives in about a week or two and I am planning moving the splits over to the second valley.   But how and when?   

If I am too close to the old location the home bees will fly back home and weaken the new colony.  Moving to my other location on the plains would keep the bees all together but it is a lot of moving.  So how do I move them without loosing bees?

The other thing I am wondering is when to move them.  Should I leave the splits together with the other hives until the queens are fertilized or should I move them as soon as the splits are done?  If I move them as soon as the splits are done I do not need to worry too much about the home bees ... they will be gone anyway but fertilization may be more of a challenge perhaps?

Any thoughts... ?

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