Now THAT was exciting

[Dubhe]

Did a cut down split on one of my boomers a week and a half ago. As suggested by MB's site, almost all of the open brood, eggs, some honey/ pollen and a couple of shakes of extra bees into the split. Only thing was, I couldn't find the queen. Oh well, 50 - 50 chance she was in the new hive. Everything seemed to be going great. The original hive kept gaining bees from the closed brood and the supers were starting to fill. Then this morning...

Finishing the lawn when the original hive boiled out of the entrance. It turned into a bee tornado, a hellstorm of wings and stingers spiraling up out of the yard, over the house, then settling down on the other side of the house in a bush. Thank God the neighbors must have been sleeping in or else I'm sure the national guard would've been called.

Collected them in a spare nuc without incident & kept them at that location for the stragglers & scouts to find their way in. Now the question (you knew there'd be a question here, right?)

Can I button them up tonight & move them to my apiary on the other side of the house, or have they already oriented in to this, new spot?

[iddee]

Move them.

[Mike Gillmore]

Nice catch.
Yep, go ahead and move them. Any stragglers will return to the old hive when they figure out the swarm is gone.

[Barry Digman]

see my post "Captured Swarm Placement" for the results of NOT moving them far enough.

[Dubhe]

Thanks everybody. Barry, I don't have much choice in placement, so I'll add a frame of brood & honey & see if that'll hold em. Thanks for the heads up. I wouldn't have done that otherwise.

[timgoodin]

If you can spare a frame of brood or eggs this will help to anchor them in the nuc box. I would go ahead and move them to their perm location after giving the brood or eggs.

Tim

[iddee]

The move from front to back yard should be sufficient. It doesn't take a great distance. A hundred feet should be enough.

[Dubhe]

UPDATE:

Well I moved the swarm/ nuc back to about 8 feet from the hive that threw them, added a frame of brood & honey, & left a leafy branch on the front porch to help them orient. So far there's about a hundred confused stragglers loitering at the swarm-capture location on the other side of the house. Hopefully they'll find their way back.

Thanks again to eceryone that talked me through this.