Moving bees

[davchr]

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

[Robo]

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.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,16864.0.html

[Michael Bush]

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.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmoving.htm