Help fast

[Jas0n Bresson]

I moved my 2 hives about 40 feet to the other side of a building.They had 2 days of very cold weather and I put branches in front of the entrance.42 degrees today and I have hundreds of bees hovering aronud the old location so I put an empty deep with 3 drawn frames to colect them. They are bearding the entrance and it looks like alot of them are in the deep.Is it to cold to take brood from a strong hive and do a split.I only have 1 hour before I leave town and the weather is bad this coming week. Any quick solutions? Thanks Jason

[Walliebee]

Don't do the split. You will most likely loose the bees and brood, as well as weaken the parent hive.

Move as many as you can from the old location back to the parent hive. Leave the empty deep in the old location, and hope for the best.

[Jas0n Bresson]

Walliebee Can I put news paper on my weaker hive and add this deep to it tonight and try to add more branches in front of the entrance.

[naturebee]

Good advice from Walliebee.

ps. as I’ve stated many times on this forum,
the branch technique doesn’t work.

Best Wishes,
Joe

[Walliebee]

You could, but I know it too early for any nectar flow there, and the bees in the combined deep will have no food and it will take a few days or longer for them to combine. They will most likely starve.

I would not want to do anything like that this early where you are and with the weather this week unless I was afraid I was going to loose the weaker hive.

[Jas0n Bresson]

Thanks for the replies, you live and you learn. How would you get as many as possible back to the parent hives as stated?

[paulnewbee1]

To get them back in you might just want to push them back into a box by hand I would not use any water. they will get cold and could die.they should be a little slow at that temp.

Hope you the best

[dcross]

I would just move the deep to the new location and shake the bees out while it's still warm enough for them to fly.

[honeyshack]

I do not have the experience of some of these seasoned vetrans here. What I would do is, empty each frame infront of the hive, on the bottom board so they enter into the hive, preferably in the later part of the day. I might even give them a light spritz of sugar water from a spray bottle. As they enter the bees in the hive would clean them off, accepting them. Not a heavy wet the bees to the core, just a real light light mist.
Just a thought.