I had agreed to move some hives to a nearby organic farm in order to help them pollinate their crops and for me to test out the site. My hope is that the bees will flourish there, produce substantially more honey than at the beeyard at my parents (to warrant the extra effort of a second site), and that they will not be attacked by a bear.
To address that last concern, my father and I went down to the site on a Saturday in April and settled on which site to use, cleared the site, and then set up an electric fence that will hopefully be a bear deterrent.
When we got home I put straps on the double nuc so it will be ready to move the next day. I had decided to move the double nuc as I wanted to move to hives down and it was two hives for the effort of moving one hive. IT would have bene more scientific to bring down one nuc and one full strength colony to compare with the nuc and the other colonies left behind, but I had not been able to transfer the nucs from the double nuc boxes into regular hive boxes since the cold had persisted.
The next morning was a frost, which suited me fine as it meant that the bees were not flying. I plugged up the entrance again thankful for the cold as it meant that the bees would be less likely to overheat during travel with reduced ventilation. We lifted the hive up on to the truck, placed it on a bag of wool for padding, secured it, and off we went.
It was straightforward enough to get unload the hive and put it into place on top of some cinder blocks.
My beeyard looks noticeably emptier without them and Orange hive.
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