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Author Topic: Moving bees  (Read 2340 times)

Offline davchr

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Moving bees
« on: July 27, 2008, 03:49:23 pm »
I have a colony of feral bees in an irrigation control box next to my house.  I want to move them about 300 yards into a hive box with my other hives.  Can I just put them into the new hive box and move them, box and all?

thanks
Dave Christensen
Fallbrook, CA

Offline Robo

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Re: Moving bees
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2008, 09:25:23 pm »
The safest route would be to move them into a hive and then move the hive at least 3 miles away for a couple of weeks.   Then you can move them back with your other hives.  A 300 yard move is going to cause issues with the foragers returning to the old location.  You can place weeds/brush or other obstacles in front of the entrance to try and cause them to reorient themselves, but this is hit or miss.

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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Moving bees
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2008, 08:06:53 am »
300 yards is a pretty long ways for a short move.  In other words, a short move is one where they can easily fly back to the old location (less than a mile and a half).  They will have to circle until they find their way back.  100 yards or so this isn't too bad.  300 is pushing it.  But they will find their way eventually.  I usually figure anything over 100 yards is pushing it.  I never had the luxury of a place to put them that was more than a couple of miles away and convenient, until recently, so that was never a choice.  But certainly, if you have such a place available, I'd use it.

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