Distance to move a fresh split

[creekroad]

I have done a few splits in the past which I moved more than 3 miles away from my bee yard. After about 3-4 days I bring them back. Is their a simpler way to do this? Do I need to move them this far? If I move them a couple hundred feet to a different environment will they still find their original hive and leave the split?

I have heard of people trapping the bees in for a few days but not sure how this works and how long to trap them in? Do I give them a wet sponge for them to get water?

[Ravenseye]

I rarely move them far. I have two right now that aren't 25 feet from where I split them. I shake in extra bees when I split and I face the splits in a different direction. Sure, some will likely drift back but I generally don't have too many problems.

[RickR]

This year I place 3 of my splits less than a foot from their parent hives. They are all thriving and have filled out a deep brood box and a medium super each. In addtion, one has filled out 3 1/2 shallow supers of honey, and the other two spilts have filled out 2 supers of honey each.

Based on what I've seen this year, and what other more experienced beeks have told me I would say that there is little, if any, benefit to moving splits away from the parent hives.

[Motown]

The old 2 feet or 2 mile rule. I have done splits and left them in the same yard. Understand that all of the foragers will go back to their oringinal hives, leaving only the nurse bees. The split takes a couple of days to reorganize the workers, with some of the nurse bees becoming foragers. It works! Keep in mind that some new information from Michigan State University has shown that bees have memories, and that they degrade after 3-5 days, so if you take them to a remote site, you might want to leave them for a week or so.

I do transfers once a week. I split on a Saturday and transfer on a Sunday, the following week, I bring them back on Sunday. The Queencell larve will be between 10-12 days old and capped. That way they cal go on mating flights with my own drones as the papa bees.

[Omie]

I've made three splits this year so far, moving the split only a few feet away from the parent hive. I feed the moved part for a couple of weeks (or give them scraped-open frames of honey), make sure it has either the queen or fresh eggs, and I put some twigs across the entrance to remind the outgoing bees to stop and realize they are in a new location before they just fly off to forage as usual. So far no problem s doing this at all.

[tommyt]

Do the split! Leave the split where the mother hive was.
Move mother hive a foot away foragers will return to split
others will drift back to mother hive.

Good Luck
Tommyt

[sqkcrk]

Depending on your apiary, home or out, you don't really have to move them far at all. Just somewhere in the same yard.

Split a parent colony, leaving the queen and what the colony needs on the original stand or bottom board and move the split across the yard, making sure you have shaken plenty of bees into the new colony which you will add a queen ro cell or allow to raise its' own.

The field bees will return to the original hive, but if you have shaken enuf bees from the original hive, the split will do just fine.

Just last Monday, I had some queens to use and I did just that on a pallet which had an empty corner. I split the diagonally placed colony, leaving the queen in her original place. There is some possibility that moving the queen will make acceptance of a new queen less.