Hi Paul and All
 
In response to the few posts here I have also noticed  this drifting
back effect with bees.
 
HOwever: One can erase this. It appears that when bees abscond, they
erase their memory!! Yes. If you are moving a beehive, or making a
split somthing that works quite well, but is a bit time consuming is
to do the following (I tested this two days ago, after becoming sick
and tired of chaotic splits)
 
Take all brood out of hive with queen and the bees in front of the
hive. Put an excluder over the bottome body and place a body on top
with the brood back in it. Once enough bees are in here remove it and
put it to one side. Take the bottom body with queen out and plce the
top body without queen in it's place. Cover.
 
Now, take the hive with the queen and walk a certain distance away
to where you want the new hive to be. Put a branch there and dump the
bees at it's base. Luckily at this stage I found the queen and put
her in a matchbox. The bees will crawl up the stick, and surround the
matchbox which has the queen. They then begin scenting that that is
where she is and the cloud seems to settle, she can then be released.
I then left them like this for an hour, and soon they looked like a
real swarm.
 
I then went back to the old box, took two frames of brood and one of
pollen out and gave it to this 'swarm' and gave the queenless hive a
few cells raised from their hive a week earlier.
 
Today the split was foraging nicely, and the other hive looked okay
too.
 
I know this sounds like a major schlep, but it does work, and I am
sure with practise it will become less so. (I will report on this
one!!) I was also kind of sentimental about the hive I was
dismantling as it is my favourite so that why the time was spent.
 
HOpe that is of use!!
 
Keep well
 
Garth
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
Eastern Cape Prov.
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
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