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claudette coming

3K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  James Urbish 
#1 ·
Hi My single hive is my back yard here on south padre island . Monday it looks like we are gonna get hit with a minor hurricane. I need to move the bees off it .should i plan to screen the top and install the entrance feeder and screen the front should i leave all the bodys on the hive and move together? any suggestions would be very helpful im kinda in a panic thanks Malcolm
 
#2 ·
How tall is the hive? How much help will you have? How far will you need to move them? Make sure everyone else is taken care of first.
Will you need to move them by boat?
Screens and feeders are a very good idea, also try to keep them in the shade as much as possible. If you nail the hive boxes together, will you be able to lift them? In a case like this, if the hive is really tall, I would pull the extra honey supers off, and maybe even do a split so the hives are easier to move. Unless you have access to a trailer that you could set the hive in. Then you could just put the hive in the trailer today, nail it together, and close it up tonight. Good luck
 
#3 ·
Screen the top and entrance, leave the feeder off or empty while moving. Closing the hive in early morning or late evening will make sure you get most of the foragers. The hive should not be closed up for very long, even at night. Close them up move them then open entrance. If the hive is moved less than 4 miles most of the foragers will try to return to the original site. I use ratchet straps to hold the hive together while moving. If the hive is managable with the supers on leave them on.
 
#4 ·
The problem too is where do you take them ? If you move them inland you need to go 50 + miles and they may still get wiped out. my plan in Rosenberg near Houston about 55 miles off the water is to remove full supers and go with the 40 pound concrete blocks on top But I will not be worrying about storm surge like one might be that close. I saw some of your bees in may when my family and I spent a week in the area doing the tourist thing Good luck and pray it goes in between you and me out in the middle
 
#5 ·
How to do it depends, as mentioned, on how much help you have, how heavy it is, what transportation you have. I can't imagine moving one on a small boat. If you have enough help and some transportation that is prettey stable, I'd screen off the entrance at night (if you have that luxary) Screen on top is nice if it's hot. Doesn't matter that much if the weather is in the 60s or 70s. I'd cut some 2" square peices of plywood and nail them on all four corners of each peice with four small ring shank panel nails. Then I'd strap it if you can. Pick it up by the bottom box so there is no weight on the connections between the boxes. Good luck. You do whatever you can or whatever you have to. If you have no help, I'd move a box at a time into whatever you have to move them with. (A trailer? A truck bed?) Then if you have the time wait until night and close it up. If you don't have time just nail it together, close it up and go.

You do what you have to.
 
#6 ·
Malcolm it looks like your going to bee ok. On the other hand it looks like the storm might come in at Freeport about 50 air miles from my bees. If it does we will get some data on how well 16 hives come through a class 1 storm the last big storm through here was Alica in 1983 a grade 3 storm. We have had a lot of building in the last 20 years. This could prove to cause flooding . In 1983 I still had one hive from my high school days and it faired well at the time in spite of the storm. James
 
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