[cloddopper]

I guess it says it all in my title.

That three months of prolonged evil weather looks asif  it has just started.
 Last nigh saw the vat majoprity of oak leaves stripped off out big oak , this afternoon we got hit with a south westerly that curled in from Iceland  sending the temps plummeting to 5 oC from almost 10 oC in a matter of half a hour just to make us happy we got a little sleet with it all as well.


 A pair of ratchet tie downs at 90 degrees to each other really does help hold the hives together , putting six  or so house brick on can also help make it stay in the same place when the wind blows hard .

 In my permanent out apiaries I moved the hives still on their stands from the shelter of trees to the side of hedges well away from the trees .  Put them in blocks of two , entrances facing as near South as I could site my hives  then ran two joined tie straps round them .. this was to prevent falling branches  smashing the hives in storm conditions .

They stayed like that till the catkins started to return to the catkins . Then I moved the hives less than a yard every 15 min through the day over several days to get them back to the usual sited position

 The bee yard was quite different as most hives were set on trailers either on pallets of four , & as six or eight hives per trailer ready to take them out after closing them up to various pollinating & good nectar sites .

[Cuddles]

Hi cloddopper,

Out of curiosity, how far do you move your hives in one go?  I've been told not to move a hive more than 3ft a day.  I need to move mine into a more sheltered spot but there's a few hours graft needed to clear areas and flatten off the land if I only move them 3 ft at a time.

Thanks,
Cuddles

[cloddopper]

Hi cloddopper,

Out of curiosity, how far do you move your hives in one go?  I've been told not to move a hive more than 3ft a day.  I need to move mine into a more sheltered spot but there's a few hours graft needed to clear areas and flatten off the land if I only move them 3 ft at a time.

Thanks,

 There's still far too much witchcraft & misnomers wrt bees in the UK .
 
 Look up the angle the sun moves over 15 min and it works out at about a yard .
 Bee foraging flights tend to be 15 minutes  or less 

So bees out foraging will head back to the area and fly round the hive to pick up the scent .

So  if you have a hive on a modified wheel barrow ( well strapped on to keep it in place )  you can gently  move it a yard every 15 min when the bees are flying ( wear your suit )  in daylight when the temperature is 10 oC or greater  .
 Half a dozen hives on individual barrows  was about as much as I was able to handle for I had to load them the night before and once in close proximity had to make the wintering stand out of six concrete building blocks laid on their sides , in two stacks of three . Laid across them .....I used two treated 4x4"  9 foot long fence posts to rebuild & set the the  hives on .
 Once the two hives were on the stand I used ratchet straps to pull them down onto the bearers  .

 For hives mounted on the trailers it was easy to move up to 8 hives at a time using the 4x4 to pull the trailers a yard at a time every 15 min in the apairy area .

 Some German research indicated that bees can identify the primary colours , so pinning a large card to a hive can help the bees find home .
 Some of the German Bee Trailers are fully en-closed boxes,  having 20 or more hives anchored to the floor & walls inside for migratory bee keeping . The colours are like a pretty checkered band around the trailer .

  See if you can get hold of a proper modern commercial beekeeping book by Ted Hooper ( a Canadian ) . You'll end up smiling at what your small beekeepers are saying & doing in the name of the craft .

I'll see if I can find an ISBN  for you .

 OK no ISBN  , the book is on Amazon , get the paper back version , it's the cheapest and is easily folded back . I read it many many times from cover to cover including the introduction etc .
It's amazing how on the fourth or fifth time of reading you suddenly re read it and find something that you'd totally missed on the other readings but find it's an essential thing .

 Good luck .  Here are the details .

 Guide to Bees and Honey (Paperback)
by Ted Hooper (Author)



 If you have access to a decent trailer  , you could put all your hives on the trailer ,  using fine garden mesh netting & ratchet straps to close off the hives , then  transport the hives four miles away to a friendly farm place for four days , then bring them back to the new over wintering site & put them on the stands  .

 Of course it has to be done in bee flying weather towards the evening so that the bees can get out the next morning at the new site ..... don't forget to undo the nettings to allow bees in & out , do it all in daylight and 10 oC temperatures plus  .

So plan with the weather , park the trailer in a sheltered sun spot for the four days  . .. if you're into a couple of nights of hard frosts it's not advisable .

 The old adage of moving hives only three feet in one day or doing it three miles for three days  is not quite as sound as I was at first led to believe .
 Nectar flows and fantastic pollen opportunities  can easily upset things especially if there is a gentle wind bringing nectar & pollen scented dust  to the bees ,   

 This afternoon 20 Nov around 12.30 hrs in a very slow air movement & an air temp of 12.5 oC we still had bees & wasps visiting the last blooms of our largest fuchsia shrubs