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Transhumance

Last updated on October 26, 2026

Transhumance moves a set of colonies from one apiary to another in a single action, usually to take advantage of specific blooms, while keeping the move traceable.

On the website​

  1. From an apiary's page, display the list of its colonies.
  2. Tick the hives to move one by one, or tick the checkbox in the table's header to select at once every hive matching the current filter.
  3. Click the bulk action Transhumance.
  4. Choose the destination apiary and the move date.
  5. Confirm: the selected hives join the destination apiary.

On the mobile app​

  1. In the Enter tab, select Transhumance.
  2. Choose the destination apiary.
  3. Scan the hives to move.
  4. Sync.

What happens during a transhumance​

A transhumance does not create a new hive: it changes the apiary the selected colonies belong to, as of a given date. Each hive's history keeps a record of its successive apiaries, making it possible to reconstruct every move made over the course of the season — useful both for production tracking and for the regulatory traceability of colony locations (see the Map).

Transhumance is the same mechanism as Overwintering: only the destination (and an overwintering flag) differs. Both actions are offered side by side on an apiary's colony management page.

It's also ApiTracer's base scan: the other scans that attach a hive to an apiary — Harvest, Overwintering, Queen — also carry out this same apiary↔hive attachment, on top of their own action. That's why a harvest, an overwintering, or a first queen pairing on an apiary are enough to place a hive, without going through a dedicated Transhumance scan.

What is transhumance in beekeeping?​

Transhumance refers to the seasonal move of hives from one location to another, most often to take advantage of specific blooms (acacia, lavender, chestnut...) or to follow honey flow periods across regions — a common practice among professional and multi-activity beekeepers.

In ApiTracer, transhumance scans build a dated history of which hives stayed in which apiaries, which keeps the regulatory traceability of colony locations even after several moves within the same season (see the corresponding question in the FAQ).

This also makes it possible to find the operations recorded on an apiary in the history of every hive that was present on that apiary on the operation's date.