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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Michael Baucom <mbaucom AT outlook.com>, Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Hive Relocation Question
  • Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2017 15:40:41 -0400

Michael,


In my opinion, this whole issue gets blown way out of proportion. It isn't a life-or-death type of thing. Only about 15 percent or so of your colony are foragers -- those are the only ones that are at risk in a move. If your colony is strong, it can lose half, or all, of those and hardly notice, at least not in the long run. I've seen people get all worked up about moving and confine the bees for several days for no good bee-biology reason, putting them at high risk of suffocation and heat prostration, which would affect all of the colony. Thinking they may save a few they end up killing them all.


So, with respect to the bees themselves, just move them in the late evening the way you have done before and don't worry about it one bit.


Now if the people moving into your old house are coming in the next day, you may want to come by that morning and scoop up any stragglers that you see aggregating at the old hive site. That would be the "good neighbor beekeeper" thing to do. Or to do it really well, you could leave a nuc box or similar, with a frame of old comb, at the old site and retrieve it the next night.


Does this help?


Randall


On 3/27/2017 2:15 PM, Michael Baucom wrote:
BN6PR19MB0962A3D65F736FCBC95843C5A6330 AT BN6PR19MB0962.namprd19.prod.outlook.com" type="cite">

Hi All,


I'll soon be moving to a new house and bringing my 1-year-old colony/hive with me.  The new house is only about 1/2 mile from my current house, so should I expect any problems or confusion with the bees still wanting to go "home" to the old location since it'll be so close to the new place and since their forage area won't change much?  As with the last time I moved hives, I plan to do it in the evening after most of the foragers have come back to the hive and so the next morning they'll be leaving from the new location, but if there are other precautionary steps I should take to minimize any relocation issues I'd appreciate any tips.


Thanks very much for any input.


-Michael Baucom

Calvander / Dairyland area



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