Home▸Biology▸Moving House: How to Safely Relocate Honey Bee Colonies

🐝 Moving House: Relocating Honey Bee Colonies

Interactive 3D map showing a hive being moved between two sites, with a relocation-distance slider illustrating the 'three feet or three miles' rule and forager reorientation behaviour.

Biology2DModerate60 FPS

A hive is carried from an old apiary site to a new one while foragers that were out in the field try to fly home — showing exactly why beekeepers move colonies either less than three feet, or more than three miles.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Forager honey bees navigate home using memorised landmarks near the old entrance. Move the hive too far to be unnoticed but not far enough to break that landmark memory, and returning foragers fly to the old, now-empty spot instead of the new one.

🎮 How to Use

Drag the relocation-distance slider anywhere from a few feet to several miles, toggle reorientation aids, then click "Move the hive" to watch a batch of foragers attempt to find their way home and see the predicted loss rate.

💡 Did You Know?

Piling leafy branches over a new entrance or confining a colony for a couple of days before release both force fresh orientation flights, cutting forager losses even inside the riskiest middle-distance zone.

⚙ Under the hood

Interactive 3D map showing a hive being moved between two sites, with a relocation-distance slider illustrating the 'three feet or three miles' rule and forager reorientation behaviour.

colony-relocationbeekeepinghive-movingforager-reorientationapiculturebiology

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install