PerthshireBees · Perthshire, UK · Gear · Oct 10, 2026
Moving four hives 400 metres to a sheltered winter site — go now while they're still flying, or wait for the cold?
Perthshire, seven years. My summer site is a lovely open field that turns into a wind tunnel from November, and 400 metres away there's a corner behind a beech hedge with a south-facing slope that I've been given permission to use. The distance is the problem: it's well under the three miles that makes a move simple, and the bees are still flying on mild afternoons.
Three options as I see them. Move now and accept that foragers will return to the old site for a few days. Wait until they're properly confined by cold, when a few weeks without flight means they reorientate on their first proper flight anyway.
My inclination is to wait for a genuinely cold settled spell, strap everything, move at first light, and put a branch across each entrance so they notice something has changed. But I've never done a short move in winter and I'm wary of breaking up the cluster bumping four hives along a rutted track.
Anyone done this? How cold does it need to be before a short move is safe, and does the branch trick actually work?
Cork, twelve years, done this several times. Wait for the cold. Once they've been shut in a few weeks the flying bees you'd lose have died off anyway and the survivors reorientate properly on their first flight. Move in the morning with entrances closed or blocked with foam, strap each hive as a unit including the floor, and go slowly over the ruts — the cluster will cope with a careful move far better than you think.
AlpineCarnica · Oct 10, 2026
Tyrol. Same, and the branch across the entrance does help, though a leaning board or a handful of grass does the same job — anything that makes them crawl out and look around instead of launching straight into their old flight line. Keep the entrance open once you set them down, a blocked entrance plus a warm afternoon suffocates colonies more often than short moves kill them.
SkaneBees · Oct 11, 2026
Skåne. Worth saying that a sheltered site is worth real effort — I moved a yard out of a wind funnel three years ago and winter losses halved, no other change. PerthshireBees, one warning about the beech hedge corner: check it isn't a frost hollow. Cold air drains downhill and a lovely sheltered dip can be the coldest damp spot on the farm.
PerthshireBees · Oct 11, 2026
Good call on the frost hollow — it's a shelf on the slope rather than the bottom, but I'll leave a min-max thermometer there for a fortnight before committing. Waiting for the cold either way.