Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Fri, 3 Dec 2021 19:41:04 +0000 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
"first moving a foot or two causes some consternation"
I have moved hives 100 yards by first moving a couple of feet. Next day move 5 feet. Next day move ten feet. After a few days of this you can move 50 feet or more at a time. I have done this when I had a hive I was using as a cell builder which was all by itself 100 yards from my bee yard. What I see is many of the bees fly in from over the trees to the original location and then fly a few feet above ground in the direction of the move. Some will keep flying to the original location for a week then in the move direction. The interesting part is the last move when the hive gets moved into the bee yard next to other hives. By that time they are used to finding the new location and seem to get there ok even if there are lots of other hives. No clue how they manage that last move. Smell? Hive appearance? Entrance appearance? I have always made the last move to the end of a row in the same direction I have been moving them so maybe that helps them? There seem to be very small losses when this method is used. I have also moved within the yard from a nuc row into a production hive row 30 feet away with intermediate moves starting with a couple of feet with the last move from the nuc into a ten frame hive right next to each other from the immediately prior move and all seem to stay put in the new hive just fine. In those cases I think a lot of brood tends to "glue" them in. All in all moving does not seem like a big issue to me if you start with short moves.
I have also made queens by putting a ten frame deep on top a production hive with a frame of two of brood in that top deep and a queen excluder under the top deep and a top entrance of some sort. Then in six weeks when the queen is laying good and there is a bunch of new brood simply taking that top deep and moving it someplace else maybe 30 feet away on a new stand and it seems like most of the bees stay in the new location. That has got to be because the brood is locking many of the older bees in. Often there is light traffic at the entrance for a couple of days. But it is also normal to see bees returning with pollen loads within a couple of hours after the move. It may help that the new entrance is a different direction than the old entrance as well as a very different height from the ground.
It sure seems to me like bees are decently adept at finding new locations. And lost ones rapidly bum into a new hive so are not really a problem.
Dick
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
|
|