yet another question about moving hives

[rober]

my M.D hired me to be his beekeeper. he already had his hives in a shady location & has had a lot of S.H.B. this past year after a mild winter S.H.B. counts were way up for this area & he had a boatload of them. I finally convinced him that the hives need to be moved to a sunny patch. the move will be around 500 ft.. if I move them now while they are fairly dormant & put something in front of the hives to force reorientation y'all think I can move them the 500 ft. or should I still do it in increments? the other option would be to move them to one of my yards until spring but I'm concerned that I'd be bringing S.H.B to my yard.

[iddee]

Move them now when they are not flying. Screen them in for 4 or more days. They will reorient when they are released.

[rober]

thanks

[Bakersdozen]

I would be concerned about moving them when they are clustered.  One big bump could cause the cluster to break up and lose the queen.  We have a lot of days when it's warm enough for them to break cluster, but not exactly flying.  Just some thoughts.

[rober]

the weather changed before I had a chance to move these hives. do I need to move them out of the area & then bring them back? or can I still lock them down & put an obstruction in front of them to force them to re-orientate? I could leave an empty hive at the original location. I do not want these hives near my bee yards as they still have a lot of beetles

[Perry]

I would go ahead and move them and place a healthy obstruction in front and then use the catcher box like you suggest, I think you'll be OK.

[rober]

it's a moot issue now. both hives are dead.

[Wandering Man]

it's a moot issue now. both hives are dead.

Ouch!  So sorry that happened.

[riverbee]

"it's a moot issue now. both hives are dead."

what happened rober? do you know why you lost them?  (ps sorry for the loss of your bees, hate losing bees).

[Bakersdozen]

it's a moot issue now. both hives are dead.

Don't beat yourself up over these hives.  If I understand correctly, you took those on this fall/winter.  I bet they were on the decline when you started caring for them.  SHB takes hold when the hive isn't robust.

[rober]

one of the hives absconded due to beetle overload. most of the comb is trashed from slime. the other hive is anyone's guess. corpses are on their way to the usda lab. I suspect mites. these ( started with 4 ) had high beetle counts all year. as stated I finally convinced the owner to move these hives to a sunnier location. due to the mild winter & wet spring last year most around here had higher beetle counts than normal, myself included but this location was severely overloaded.

[Riverrat]

I would say the Beetle weakened both hives. I wouldn't move an overloaded hive with beetles to one of my out yards especially if it didn't have much of a beetle problem.  Its best to move them to a new location on their own until you get the beetles under control.  I may be over thinking the situation but I would compare it to giving the beetles a whole lot of new ground and hives to set up shop

[rober]

these hives would have been moved around 1000'. I would not have brought them anywhere near my yards because of the beetles. I actually have a small quarantine yard about 1/2 mile from my house. any bees from swarm captures or cutouts go there until I can evaluate them. it's close enough to be convenient if I need to treat, feed, etc. but far enough away that i'm not bringing anything unwanted to my home yard.