As some may recall I have been curious about the cost of moving hives for some time.  As of yet I still haven’t found a bi directional counter,  but that’s a different topic.

To date the standard rule of thumb is 2 feet or 2 miles.   As a commercial guy I move a lot of hives,  first off the ones in my yard get moved constantly just to mow.  I move them 6 geet at a time,  every 2 weeks and mow between.  I have found it keeps the yard nice and is faster than the weedeater and less stress.   Normally its a no brainer and the bees adjust in a few hours.


I also move hives around yards and pollinations.  I try to keep that to a minimum as I have always felt the 2 mile thing was nonsense.  I suspect that the bees  fly off only to be completely lost,  and that little to no re-orienting exist.  

Yesterday I stumbled on an experiment by accident. I have been building a new honey house,  and to do that I moved a 30 foot box truck full of supers exactly 1/4 mile away from the house to a big parking lot, somewhere around 6 weeks ago.  Unknown to me a swarm moved into a stack of supers while the door was open.   Must be a dandy as they are 6 mediums deep.

Yesterday I pulled the truck home,  and found the hive.  I set them aside as I unloaded the truck which took about 2 hours.    Pondering it I went back to where the truck was parked,  and sure enough a 2-3 lb swarm of foragers had collected on another truck parked there. 

My thought was these may have been foragers that were  "out" when I moved the hive as it was 10 in the morning when I did it.

I put that pallet  on a flatbed and moved it back,  curiosity and all.  And sure enough within about 30 min,  all those bees were back in the hive.  

BUT  where I had the pallet parked in the house yard was a swarm of about 100 lost bees.  Still hanging on a super close to where that pallet was parked for about 2 or 3 hours!  They are still there today totally lost,  despite a hive 30 feet away.


Last night after dark I went back and got the pallet.  Plan was to move them home and put them on a regular pallet  which I did.  But  as of this morning after about 6 hours of daylight,  there are about 2 lbs of bees back at the original site!  Bolstering my thought that very little re orientation takes place after most moves.

There are a good number of foragers who are working in and out and have not gotten lost,  but its quite clear also  that a large number do not ever return!



Charles

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