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moving hives and lost bees.

3K views 8 replies 7 participants last post by  sqkcrk 
#1 ·
Shoot me if this is the wrong forum, but I was looking for professional inputs...

Yesterday I had to move a cpl pallets of hives because of some pending construction. I decided to move them about 1/4 mile to eh other side of the same field. Moved them early evening, and put a single there to catch stragglers the next morning.... when I moved the hives I made sure to turn them all a different direction, and put some grass in the entrances.. early morning found a few stragglers, but buy evening there were probably 100,000. (3 deeps full) so apparently they did not reorient at all.....
When I did a visual on those 8 hives, I couldn't hardly tell.... So my question is, are they really re-orienting, or are we just losing them and not noticing??
 
#3 ·
Oh, I pondered that... Really did.. but now I am curious... so what I did was take those 3 deeps of bees 2 miles away to a pollination site. if those deeps are empty in the next day or two, I think I will have my answer........ the other 2 pallets are really not the worse for wear... losing a cpl frames of foragers from each. not a big problem.... just got me to thinking,
 
#7 ·
well the thoery I was told , is that if you move them, change entrance location, and put grass in the hole... now I am wondering if that even matters or if there is something else going on...
I did add the bees to a single, I also moved it 2 miles... curious to see if I loose those foragers. it will be easy to tell in a day or so...
never had a lick of trouble moving winter time hives.
 
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