Hi Rita, The folk-lore I have heard is that one should move hives less than three feet, or more than three miles. I have personal experience of a less than honest beekeeper who sold me a nuc, with full knowledge of where I lived. I drove the ten miles or so to his home and picked up the nuc, which he had kindly installed into our equipment for us. Got the bees home, and shortly afterwards noticed that the population of the hive dwindled very quickly. They eventually built up to full strength, but I didn't get the honey crop I had been "promised". I was a new beekeeper at the time, so I didn't understand what was going on. After talking about it with a number of others, I learned that this particular beekeeper had an out-yard about a mile from my home. The general agreement was that he had taken the nuc from that local site, moved it to his house, and then allowed us to bring them "back to the neighborhood". The field bees promptly went home to the original apiary, and we were left with a weak hive. I wonder how many times he was able to sell that particular group of bees..... Rick Hough, a beekeeper from Hamilton, MA, USA (45 minutes NE of Boston) [log in to unmask]