A few days before the move I place them on this wagon a few feet from the original hive position. This is close enough that the forager bees will still find the hive.

The wagon will make it easier for me to move the hive closer to the bee house.

On the night of the move, I prepare their new home. They will be going from a 10 Frame AZ to a 12 Frame, so I add a couple of waxed frames.

Once its Dark, I plug the entrance hole on the swarm catcher and move the wagon close to the door to my bee house.

Inside the bee house I have an adjustable table that I will place the hive on.

The hive is placed on the table.

The hive is moved into position. Here, it will sit for about three hours to give the bees a chance to settle down.

Note the LED light. This will be the only light on in the bee house. This will make catching the straglers much easier.

After sitting for three hours, I open the top of the swarm catcher.

Note that this point, I am not using any smoke, as I want as many bees as possible on the frames.

I start moving the frames. Note that I will keep the frames in the same orientation and position as they were in the swarm catcher.

The move only takes a few minutes.

Once all the frames were in place, I smoked the bees a little to chase them into the hive and added the rear screen.

I add a feeding tube and start the bees on some 1:1 sugar syrup.

Note that I will alternate the syrup with water.

It is my plan to keep the hive closed up for 4 days, so water and syrup is really important.

I use my bee vacuum to remove any bees still in the swarm catcher. I also remove the bees on the LED work light.

The vacuumed bees are dumped an a platform I place in front of the hive.

The bees make their way into the hive. This is a good sign as the queen is in-place.

Once most of the bees have entered the hive ….

…. I remove the entrance reducer and close the main entrance.

The hive will be closed up for four days. I will do this to force the foragers to do new orientation flights when the hive is opened up.

The bees took to the sugar syrup almost immediately.

Water is just as important to the bees at this point. Since the hive is closed off it will help them keep the hive cooler.

Note the temperature sensor on the rear screen. While it does not give me a true temperature inside the hive it lets me keep an eye on the temps. I did notice that when I fed the bees water the temperature did drop a little.

The bees tended to be very agitated. They almost looked like a hive that was in the process of swarming.

By giving them water, removing the foam, and turning all the lights in the bee house off they settled down to an almost normal pace.

On the morning of the fourth day, I let the bees out.

There were several bees that did orientation flights, but many still returned to the old hive location.

The fifth hive is fitting in nicely.