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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: "Thomas Grizzle" <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • To: <mm AT reddrum.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] Moving a hive
  • Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:21:42 -0400

I saw your question.  Another way to move a hive, and I’ve done it just once, is to wait until night and close the hive up (so all the bees are home for beddy-bye), i.e., close the top and the bottom entrances.  Wait 1 day with it all closed up, during which time you move it to its new location.  After approx.. 36 hr, and in the morning (hopefully you get the point, 1.5 days), you take a bunch of leaves and/or some branches with leaves and put them all around the entrance, stuffing some into the entrance, etc., then open the hive up.  Being closed up and then finding the leaves supposedly signals them to reorient. 

 

The reason it supposedly works is for millions of years they lived in trees.  Trees fall down, relocating the hive many tens of feet, if not a hundred feet talking about virgin forest.  They get trapped, then they get out have to orient to their new surroundings.  Bees that were terrible at doing this perished eons ago and bees that were good at reorienting survived??

 

I saw a video on this on youtube so it must be true, right?  Seriously, I did it myself, moving one hive about 30-40 feet in a single go.  It worked.  If it fails, you will see lots bees in the old location later in the day.  You can always move it back and try something else??

 

Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

 

Thomas B. Grizzle

 




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