Oregon State Beekeepers Association  Oregon State Beekeepers
Association   Home for Oregon Beekeepers  Beekeeping 101 -
Moving Bees  There are some challenges with moving bees. Large
bee operations employ flat-bed trucks, hydraulic lifts or fork
lifts to pick up pallets of hives. Back yard beekeepers normally
do not move their colonies because they are not in the
pollination business. Most often hives are moved to be in a
better location for better weather exposure or to get them out
of a high traffic area where pets or meter readers may walk into
a problem.   There are two ways to move a colony. One way is to
move them a few inches every day until you get them where you
want them. The reason to only move them a few inches a day is
because the bees know where their home is. If you move their
hive three feet away from its original position the bees return
to where the hive used to be. They don't even see that it's the
same box just in another place. Their homing instinct is
geographically exact. Moving their h