Moving the hive

[Stanisr]

I recently aquired several hives and was concerned about moving them. First off, I searched the forum and found a lot about how to move them, but very little about moving them in winter. The gentleman said I could leave them a few weeks but really needed them moved as soon as possible, I think he is moving himself. My question is, should I go ahead and move them, or wait as long as I can to let them begin to build up this early spring. And the second question is, we have had a very mild winter, should I move them during a cold snap, or during a warm snap. We seem to be in a weather cycle where we have 5 or 6 days of cool weather with low 30's at night, then 5 or 6 days of warm days. Thanks

[hpm08161947]

Move them now... in the winter. Just simpler... all clustered. You can do it in the light. In the spring and summer we have to do it at night... dang crawling bees.

[Michael B]

I moved a dozen hives in december with temps in the 20's. It is easy to do it when they are not flying. You cant hurt anything by moving them with the temps are cool to cold. If you do it on a warm day just be sure to get them screened up the evening before or the morning of the day of the move.

[Kevin245]

I prefer to move mine in the colder months. Less worries about overheating in the hive and no bees crawling up my pants leg. I screen them in at night and load out at dawn the next morning.

[Vance G]

Cold is fine, just tie them together with ratchet straps. The propolis holding stuff together gets very brittle and slippery when it breaks in the cold. Get help lifting them a double deep is not for sissies like me anymore.

[SwedeBee1970]

Nothing like strapping them together to avoid moving the deeps around and disturbing them. Weight would be the biggest obstacle and 2nd, how far are you moving them ?

[berkshire bee]

Even though it is winter, be sure to staple screen over any entrances. Enough bumping and shaking can still get them curious enough to see whats going on.

[pcord]

I moved hives last summer and no matter how much material I stacked in front of the entrances, a good number of bees still returned to the old location forcing me to put a box there to capture and return them to the new location. This wouldn't work so well in winter since the colder temps might kill wayward bees. Any ideas on this? Do they all automatically re-orient after being stuck inside the hive so long so the issue is not as bad?

[psfred]

In cold weather there won't be any foragers to come back after you move the hive, the bees are all inside in the cluster or outside and frozen to death.

You can move hives in the daytime with no problems or stray bees if it's cold -- probably should, as noted, screen the entrances and definitely strap the hives together!

If you wait until it's warm enough for them to fly, you will have bees returning to where the hive was.

The bees will re-orient when they come out of the hive in the new location and it's not familiar.

Peter