Finally some decent weather but today's work won't involve opening up any of the hives, just manually lifting one of them a few yards.
I stuffed some grass in the entrance hole to stop any bees coming out and bothering us while we moved it, then took the grass plug out as soon a we set it down again. 
Because of the nuc (N2) being so close to where all the flying bees from this colony would navigate back to, we shifted the whole of the swarm colony (pictured above, on the right) left a foot or so - this will help the flying bees relocate it easily. They will recognise the 'colony scent' of this hive because their new queen has not yet hatched out - that can't happen until tomorrow at the earliest.It's not easy to see in the photo above but many flying bees were visibly returning to the vacant spot and quickly locating the hive next to it - I checked and none of them was challenged by the guards at the entrance so it seems to have worked correctly.
The colony we just moved has now just lost all its flying bees. This is a setback for the productivity of this colony but is a necessary precaution because otherwise there is a risk that the virgin queen could hatch tomorrow and produce a 'cast swarm', disappearing with all the flying bees in the colony. That will not be possible now so she'll just have to stay put instead!This colony will raise more flying bees soon now, and each of them will learn to navigate back to this hive. Because this colony is receiving so little resources from foragers I am feeding it sugar syrup until it is up to strength - I'll continue this for a couple more weeks at least.
