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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Thomas Grizzle <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Moving a hive
  • Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:51:29 -0400

Tom & all,

The question isn't "did the bees end up in a new home". The question is "did they end up in the home they were supposed to". That can be answered scientifically by marking the bees, moving the hives and counting the marked bees in different hives in the apiary. The video didn't answer that question, it was purely anecdotal. My guess is that many of the moved bees randomly came back where they were supposed to, and many went to the other hive.

On balance there isn't a big problem. It is just the foragers who are in a flux, and they are only about 25% of the adult bees. If half go elsewhere, that's a 12.5% ding, which probably wouldn't be noticed in the big picture. And if they give a 12.5% boost to your other hives, it all evens out.

Randall



On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 8:31 AM, Thomas Grizzle <griz AT mindspring.com> wrote:

Hey y’all,

 

Just to give a second opinion regarding that piece posted last week (sorry… I cannot give credit where it is due!) on moving a hive in some increment other than 3 feet or 3 miles, it actually works!  I have been “inching” a hive in 3’ increments and saw the video, so I tried it.  I completely closed up the hive for 24 hr, early morning to early morning, moved it about a dozen feet, and when I unblocked the hive crammed some fresh oak leaves into the hive entrance (making sure the inner cover entrance was blocked).  I came back about 2 hours later and there were only 3-5 bees at the old location circling around.  Came back at about 4 and 6 hours and zero bees at the old location, all bees had apparently reoriented.  I’m a believer.

 

Thinking about why this works, bees would have evolved much of the time in hollow trees, think rotten, which over the many millions of years of their existence, would have fallen many times.  When they would fall, having a mechanism, a signal, to reorient would be a necessity or they would end up “lost.”  Fallen trees have leaves and debris that would clog and change the hive entrance… would this be a signal to reorient??  Makes sense to me…but just speculating (or BS’ing!).

 

Tom Grizzle


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  • [ocba] Moving a hive, Thomas Grizzle, 04/16/2013
    • Re: [ocba] Moving a hive, Randall Austin, 04/16/2013

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