>I used to move quite a few bees mid-day

> - and left a couple of nucs
> behind to pick up the stragglers.  It seemed to work.
>

We do this regularly with up to a couple dozen hives.  We simply leave weak
nucs with lots of room, or the weakest hives in the yard.  This is a quick
way to boost the strength of nucs, but you need to leave plenty of room in
the hives to absorb the left-behind field forces.

The field bees will continue to return to their original hive locations
during the day for 3-4 days, but don't cluster at the site unless there is
a structure.  It is important not to leave any hive equipment near where
the hives were, or the bees may not drift to the catch nucs, clustering
instead on the equipment (or any other sort of clustering space).  That
means no left bottom boards, supers, etc.

When we make nucs by "yard trashing," we typically leave one double-deep
behind (containing a queen, two frames of brood, and the rest filled with
drawn comb) for every four hives that we remove.  The combined returning
field forces of those four hives immediately fill the catch hive, and in a
couple of weeks it is a booming colony.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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