Bob: Concern about humanly killing bees and contaminated comb
Response: It sounds like you can't move the hives, but you didn't elaborate. I sense, that if you poisoned the bees, you're going to end up moving the hives anyway. Here are two suggestions on how I moved hives.
My first way was on a friend's hives. I arrived at his place just before sunrise, just before the bees were flying. I smoked the hive heavily, then pulled off the top super/brood box and set it in an inverted, telescoping cover. I added a telescoping cover over the top of this box and I set it in the back of my van.
I did the same with the second box from the top, the third box from the top and finally the bottom brood box. Each box sat separately in my van, sitting in a telescoping cover, and covered with a telescoping cover.
We repeated this procedure with three hives, keeping the boxes straight by marking each box with a number and a letter (1-A, 1-B, 2-A, 2-B, etc.) so we could put them back together the same way.
We drove out the the new place, about a half hour away. Each box was smoked a little before the lids were removed and reassembled in the new location. We had three hives of some really disoriented bees, but upon our return in a week, no one could tell. Very likely we had some drifting, but all three seemed to be functioning quite well.
My second method was on my own bees. Late in the afternoon, I moved the hive to a new location about ten feet from the original location. I moved each box separately, carrying it over by hand. In the original location, I placed a single brood box with the bottom securely stapled to the brood box. Going back to the original hive, I sorted through the frames of brood and filled the new single brood box with frames of only brood, no honey. I made sure the queen was on one of these frames.
After ten frames filled the single brood box, I topped it with screen top (8-mesh wire bound with wood), and used duct tape to secure it (and plug leaky cracks around the edge). Then I topped it with a normal, telescoping cover. Going back the original hive in the new location, I took frames of bees and shook them in front of the new single in the original location, then returned the frames to the old hive boxes. There were some frames of brood and the bees are reluctant to leave brood frames, hence the shaking.
As darkness descended, it was a mad house of bees flying around, some robbing activity, but by dark, the original hive bodies were mostly empty of bees, heavy with honey and some brood, and the bees jam-packed into the new single. By morning, after a relatively cool night, all the bees were inside the new single. I stuffed the opening with a paper towel, removed the cover to keep them from overheating, and moved the whole works to a new location.
At the new location, I pulled out the paper towel and gave the bees about six hours to reorient themselves before returning to the beeyard, removing the screen and adding the other boxes of brood and honey supers. They were a little testy, but most of the bees were flying which made the process fairly simple.
Both of these methods of moving bees got me away from the back-breaking work of handling heavy hives. You need no special equipment, though a wheel barrow/garden cart helps if the distance to the truck is lengthy. I've tried moving entire hives requiring hand carts, appliance dollies, straps, front end loaders, rope and sixteen able-bodied young men. And I've had the large hives "slip" just a little allowing angry bees to escape.
IMHO, I like my way better. You don't have to move the whole hive in its entirity.
Of course, you can always kill the bees, but you'll need to buy replacement packages.
Grant
Jackson, MO
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