[montanabee]

I have three hives at our house. We are on an acre and are adjacent to hundreds of acres of hay fields. We placed the bee yard where it would get light afternoon shade, but need to move them.
Right now they are too close to the house. I would like to move them about 100 yards further out on our yard since it is hard not to walk in front of them with their current placement.
I have read that it is difficult to move them if it isn't at least 5 miles.
Can I wait til night time and then just pick up the whole hive and move them? will the bees reorient?

 

[JPK]

Move them and shove a nice leafy branch in front of entrance to encourage them to re-orient when they exit...it will cut down on problems.

 

[Beeslave]

Move them 2 miles away and in 2-3 wks you can move them back to the spot you want

 

[dtompsett]

lots of varying opinions... some say maximum 2-3ft per day, or move them 2 miles away for a week, then move them back. The 2-3ft method can be accomplished by putting them on a little wagon, or with a hand-cart.

But... that is also quite tedious...

I had to move mine ~200ft from the front yard to the back yard. In the evening, once things had calmed down, I fastened the brood chambers together with some small wooden straps and screws, then moved with a cart my mentor built.

Some stragglers will be lost; but in my case, there was another hive left behind which hopefully they will absorb into. That hive is moving next week to a new home 40 miles away.

Video of the move:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnUjmL9asHM

Wearing all the gear for the move... these bees are a little more aggressive than my other hives, and it didn't help that it was cool out, and getting dark. They were ready to be split up... so I moved them and split them at the same time.

 

[Robee]

What JPK said.
Move a hive right before dark, close off the entrance, move the hive, put a dense branch in front of the entrance, maybe stuff some grass in the entrance too. By the time they move the grass out and have to move around the branch to go out, they will re-orientate. Yes, there will be some straglers that still return to the old spot but after a day or two, they don't.
Works for me.
Robee

 

[EastSideBuzz]

This is what I did. I had 7 busting out hives with supers up near house that needed to go to the lower yard. I put a couple of my smaller starter hives in place of the big ones and moved the big ones. Left the smaller in place of them. This way any bee's from the larger hives that came back to that area would join the little hives and give them a boost.

Oh yea still have hives in the old spot Now you still have the problem of moving the little hives. Oops. :doh:

 

[montanabee]

thanks for all of the suggestions. The weather is supposed to get pretty crappy again later this week. Would it work if I moved them in the evening with a screen on the door and kept the door on for a few days? they would have ventilation, and feed inside(as I am feeding them now anyway). It is forecasted to rain or snow for about three days so their desire to forage is limited right now anyway.
would their little brain powered gps' re-orient in that time?

 

[Michael Bush]

One hive 100 yards is a bit of chaos. A whole beeyard is total chaos. But they will get over it in a couple of days and get back to normal. I'd do the branch thing, but it will still be a lot of confusion.

 

[dtompsett]

One hive 100 yards is a bit of chaos. A whole beeyard is total chaos. But they will get over it in a couple of days and get back to normal. I'd do the branch thing, but it will still be a lot of confusion.

Still waiting for ours to get over it...

Yesterday the last two hives were moved off the property (3 hives moved to the back yard last week; 2 hives moved miles and miles away yesterday).

Now I've got the wife calling me cause there are a LOT of pissed off bees outside...

*sigh*

Nothing I can do about it right now.

 

[pumpkinpiper]

If your weather is gonna get nasty to the point that they won't be flying much or at all for several days. Move the hives and in several days they should forget the old location for the most part. Good luck