Moving Hives

We have been uncertain whether the two hives in the garden had laying queens for a while, but had already decided that we would like to move one of them to Waxwings. We decided the Newark hive was the one so about a week ago we inspected and prepared the hive for moving. Another new beekeeping experience! It became obvious as the inspection began that we did have a laying queen in this hive- we didn't see her, but there were very small larvae and lots of egg on the frames. As we were only going to be in the car for about 20 minutes we decided that with the open mesh floor there would be enough ventilation so we put 2 straps each way round the hive and left them until later in the day.
Bees have to be moved over 3 miles to a new home as they can 'remember' where they live. If they are not moved far enough they just come back from where they came from! So we were moving to Judith's garden about 5 miles away for a few days then up to Waxwings as their new home. We had to wait until the evening as bees will keep flying as long as they can on long summer evenings and although it was raining when we went up to block the entrance with foam there were still a few flying . I'm hoping these bees were allowed in to the remaining hive!
The journey was great- none of the horror stories about bees getting out or hives coming open and when we pulled out the foam a few intrepid bees had a peek out to see what was going on. On Tuesday back we went and repeated the process taking the hive up to the site at Waxwings.
Trevor had worked hard to clear a little space for the hive. This time we took the hive in the morning before the bees had started flying. We placed the hive on the slabs and pulled the foam out - and stood back. The bees began to fly out, another new place to explore! Later that day we went back to remove the straps, there were lots of bees busily flying in and out- they had obviously settled in. On Saturday we will inspect the hive when we check out W1 and W2, hopefully they will not have found the moving about too traumatic and the queen will still be getting on with building up the brood.