A while ago, J B Free (1958) experimented with moving groups of hives to
watch how the foragers coped. He found that when one hive was moved only
about 15 m away to a new location, almost all the foragers returned to the
old location.  (He made sure that several hives were left behind at the old
site.) The defecting bees tried to join the hives that were left behind.
When he removed all the hives from the old location almost all of the
foragers returned to the new location. He seemed to show that the moved bees
knew their origins and somehow preferred the old location but when given no
choice they eventually accepted the new location.

I think most beekeepers (and beewatchers) will agree that when bees leave
natal colonies as a reproductive swarm, they tend to establish the new hive
within the foraging area they know. The fascinating thing is the foragers
rapidly learn to find their new home despite the fact that the old colony is
relatively near-by. Robinson and Dyer (1993) determined that this
reorientation after colony fission is mediated by the swarming experience.
The rapid reorientation depends on 'something' that happens during the
complex interaction of the swarming bees. The implication is that without
the swarming experience, the bees don't reorient very well. They also found
that if you take away the new hive, the foragers return to the old hive.
This means that the bees retain the ability to find the old hive even after
the swarming experience. It also means that somehow the bees 'suppress' or
'disregard' navigational cues pointing the way home to the old hive when
they 'know' a new one is waiting for their return.

When hives are moved at night without the swarming experience, I would
expect returning foragers to home-in on the old hive location. This makes
sense as long as the moved hive is within the known foraging area. The bees
know where they are in the foraging area. When they leave the hive moved
during the night, they likely 'decide' that they are on a foraging trip.
When ready, they head for home as they remember it. Without the swarming
experience, they don't seem to have the sense that home moved.

Some other work by Dyer (1993) suggests that bees don't use the hive as a
pivot point to draw navigational vectors. He speculates that bees learn how
to find feeding sites independently of the hive location; and, finding their
way home is independent of feeding sites. In other words, the bees don't
carry a 'cognitive map' like humans do. We realize space and time form
complete landscapes. We carry *whole* landscapes in our minds. Bees may
separate the 'where the food is' from 'where home is' but use the same
navigational techniques to find and remember both.

Richard Goetze

Dyer FC (1993) How bees find familiar feeding sites after changing nesting
sites with a swarm. Anim. Behav. 46:813

Free, J B (1958) The ability of worker honeybees (Apis mellifera) to learn a
change in the location of their hives. Animal Behaviour. 6:219

Robindon GE; Dyer FC (1993) Plasticity of spacial memory in the honey bees
reorientation following colony fission. Anim. Behav. 46:311