Foragers memorise the visual landmarks and flight path around their hive entrance during orientation flights, then use that memory to fly straight home from a foraging trip. Move the hive and that memory can send them back to a spot with no hive at all — the classic beekeeping headache behind the rule of thumb "move it three feet, or three miles."
Some beekeepers use a "gentler" incremental method: nudging a hive a few feet a day, letting foragers update their mental map in small steps rather than risking one large jump.
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.
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.
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.
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.