You hear it all the time: you can’t move a hive a short distance because the field force will return to the original location of the hive and become lost. The usual advice is that you must move the hive at least two miles away, give the bees a few days to reorient themselves, and then move the hive back to where you want it.
However, it is much easier than that. You can move a hive anywhere—a few inches, a few feet, or many yards—by simply forcing the bees to reorient themselves.
Here are the steps:
- In the evening or early morning when nearly all the bees are in the hive, block the entrance and move the hive to its new location. (How you actually move the hive is a separate subject, but I like to strap it all together and move it with a furniture dolly.)
- Keep the bees sequestered the first 24 hours, if possible. Keeping bees locked up will cause some of them to reorient themselves the next time they go out.
- In the meantime, place a leafy branch, a bead curtain, rags on a string, or something similar in front of the hive entrance. The object must be close enough to the hive entrance that the bees are forced to navigate around it as they leave the hive.
- On the second day, open the hive entrance. The bees will be confused by the object in front of their hive, pause for a moment, and exclaim, “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more!” They will each take a short flight and reorient themselves to the new conditions and new area.
- Leave the distraction in place for two days or so, and then remove it.
- Your bees will have reoriented themselves to their new home.
This really does work. You can test it for yourself by placing distracting materials in front of any hive without moving it. Before the materials are in place the bees fly straight in and straight out. Within minutes after putting a distraction in place, you will see bees going through the process of reorienting themselves—circling around the entrance, hovering in front of the hive, and widening the exploratory area.
Be sure you don’t have a second entrance unless it also has distracting materials. I think it’s best to have just one entrance when doing this. Also, I like to have a distraction that is big enough and irritating enough that the bees really notice. In other words, don’t use a skinny twig. I like to use a big leafy branch with lots of leaves within an inch of the entrance.
Rusty
Reorienting the bees with a branch
Whatcho talkin bout, Rusty?
I knew about the re-orienting branch trick, but I didn’t know I could move the hive any distance. I asked local beekeepers and beekeepers on a few forums, and everyone told me a variation of the 3 feet or 3 mile rule, but nothing in between.
You mean I could have moved one of my hives this year in one go? Man!
Phillip,
I’ve moved them from about 5 feet to about 600 feet using this technique. I get a bit better result when I sequester them overnight than if I use the branch alone. Actually, if you sequester them about three days and three nights, you hardly need the branch at all.
Picasso said, “I am always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do them.” Good advice. Whenever someone tells me something can’t be done, I start experimenting until I find a way to do it. Oftentimes the conventional wisdom turns out to be right, but sometimes not.
I moved a hive last year following the traditional method. It was a pain in the neck and it severely disrupted the bees. Ain’t ever doing that again.
I’ll follow your method next time. An important note might be to make sure the hive has some kind of screened ventilation on top. My bees would cook if I locked them up for a day or two in the summer without any ventilation.
So much conventional beekeeping wisdom is, you know, bunk. How often in the middle of some beekeeping chore do you think, There has got to be a better way to do this? Thanks for debunking this one.
Phillip,
Good point about top ventilation.
I plan to move my hives early tomorrow into the apiary as bears are roaming around !!!!!. We overwintered them behind the barn which is approximately 300 meters from the apiary. Last year, I had to return and scoop them off the barn wall for about 3 days. Would you suggest I move them at night rather than early (5am) and keep them closed up for 2 to 3 days. We still have cooler days here in BC with nights at a low of minus 6C and days plus 10C. My other question is: I read that I have to rotate the supers (bottom on top) should I do this now or wait for our ‘real’ spring to arrive ???? many thanks Jane
Jane,
Either morning or evening is fine, as long as all the bees are inside the hive. I’d leave them locked up for three days but make sure they have enough ventilation–like a screened bottom board and a screened top vent. The top one doesn’t have to be large, but on a warm day it’s really important.
You can reverse brood boxes if you want, but I don’t believe it’s necessary. Read this before you decide: http://www.honeybeesuite.com/reversing-brood-boxes-is-it-necessary/
Twelve days ago we caught a swarm in a trap sitting on our deck. Of course we couldn’t keep the bees on the deck, so very early the next morning before anyone was flying, we moved them across the yard. They’d only been in the box overnight, so I figured they hadn’t oriented to it and did nothing to re-orient them. Well, after we moved it, there were many confused bees. All day long there were bees trying to figure out where their box was. And I swear even yesterday, there was still a bee or two sniffing the spot where the box had been. Those scout bees must a) give really good directions and b) mark the spot with a powerful scent. Lesson learned. If I ever have to move a hive again, I will use this method for sure.
This technique did not work for me (100 metre move) and I frankly do not believe it works. You may have had a few young bees which stayed but the foragers left you. Lost a hive through sheer laziness and not moving it 4km and then back a couple days later. Stupid me.
Kimball,
You say the technique did not work for you and then you say, “You may have had a few young bees which stayed but the foragers left you.” Please don’t tell me what my bees did. I use this technique frequently and it works. Just this year I moved a big boisterous hive about 90 meters with no problem. I even put a bait box where the hive used to be to catch any stragglers, but it didn’t pick up more than a dozen bees. If you haven’t already done so, go to this post and watch the video by LDSPrepper. I’m sorry you did not succeed with the technique but it is ridiculous for you say that I didn’t either.
Excuse my presumption, I commented in the heat of the moment. I didn’t of course lose the hive. The queen is still there with a few young bees but I won’t get much honey from this hive. But I did lose most of the foragers and despite the bait box they stubbornly returned. I followed the instructions to the letter. The bees left the hive after 30 hours of confinement, circled, oriented themselves as you say and promptly returned to the original location (100 meters). I trapped them and returned them the next morning to no avail.
Moving hives in late winter is no problem, or even 5 ft anytime (most of the bees will continue to circle up to 6 ft until they find the hive but there will be a few losses). The one metre/4km rule is best in my experience. Forgive my skepticism.
Just a few details in the name of empiricism. The hive was a swarm from my hives. They have this tendency. I have one or two mini hives which I put around the property to capture swarms and they overwinter in situ and I move them in late February/March. I live in Brittany on the west coast of France and the climate is very moderate. This swarm decided to install itself in front of my cabin where I had put out an old hive to be cleaned up and it had to be moved. I was pretty excited to happen on your site and your experience. I closed them up at night, moved them the next morning and opened the hive the next day decorated as you suggested with the result above. Originally they were oriented north and moved back facing south.
I do have considerable experience managing between 10 and 20 hives but learn new things regularly. Bees are still very mysterious for me and they don’t often read bee manuals. They surprise me regularly.
I will try this technique again because others say it works. I’ll be back.
Kimball,
Since I originally wrote this post, I have actually increased the time I leave the bees locked up after the move. This last time I increased it to 72 hours on the advice of another beekeeper who had experimented with this technique quite a bit. His feeling was that 24 hours was minimum and the number of foragers that would reorient would increase every day for three days and then level off.
In light of his advice and your experience, I will amend the post and suggest a longer waiting time. As you say, the bees are mysterious and always full of surprises.
Thank you for your input.
Would like to comment about moving hives. It is important to close them up the night before and leave them closed for at least 24 hrs afterwards… We have moved hives (just 200 metres) over the past few years successfully. Yes, a few bees do fly back where they overwintered, however, I brush them into a box and take them back to the summer pasture. Like Rusty, I also put a bait box out. Happy beekeeping everyone!!