When the bees are taken from the cellar and placed on their summer
positions they sometimes tend to leave the weaker, colonies and on
their return to collect in those with greater populations. This is
known as "drifting." In general, the bees tend to drift toward the
windward side of the apiary. Most frequently they join the hives that
were first set out and which have established a strong flight by the
time the neighboring colonies have first taken wing. The tendencies,
therefore, are to join flying colonies, stronger colonies, and the
end colonies in a row. The condition of the bees plays a large part
in drifting, for if the bees are badly in need of a flight because of
dysentery they go at once into the air without properly marking the
location of their hive, and therefore are not able to find it when they
return.
To prevent drifting, it is best to set the bees out when it is too cold
for them to fly, so that as the weather warms, permitting flight, this
will take place more naturally. It is also well to reduce the entrances
so that as the bees leave the hive their tendency to orient themselves
will be greater. It is claimed by some beekeepers that if the cellar
is well aired the night before the bees are to be removed, they will
be in better condition and will drift less, but it is not clear what
difference this can make unless the clusters are made tighter because
of lower temperatures.
Beekeepers have discussed the question whether, after removal, the bees
should be placed on the same stands occupied by them the fall before.
If the bees could remember their old location so that they would return
to it, even after an interval of four months, it would be necessary,
or at least desirable, to place each colony on the same stand which it
occupied previously. There is no evidence, however, that the memory
of the bees is so good, and it is usually the ease that the bees of a
colony will lose the memory of location within a week; therefore no
attention need be paid to this feature.