Expanding the apiary

With Noah's assistance, I put the new hive stand in place and put the old hive onto it.
First we had to move the old hive.  It was too heavy to lift intact, so we took off the supers and then moved the stand and brood box a few feet up and over.  We then re-assembled the hive. 

Although the hive was only over about a foot and ahead 4-5 feet, the returning foragers would fly right by it and buzz around the area where the hive had been.  You can see the cans in the ground where the hive stand had been, and if you look carefully, you can see some bees in the air above them.
I know that bees use landmarks to orient to their hive.  I had figured that they get close and then see the hive, but apparently not.  It seems that they depend on the landmarks the whole way to their door.  I'm trying to find some studies to do with this.  I may need to write to Tom Seeley again for a reference.  I'm sure he'd be happy to hear from me again.
I didn't want for us to be digging in the middle of a cloud of bees, so we waited a bit over an our until most of the foragers had figured out where to go.  We then used the smoker to keep the few lost girls away from us.

After a bit of digging and scraping, checking with a level and then digging and scraping some more, we got the new hive stand in place.
Then we disassembled the hive and inspected before moving it onto the new stand.  We didn't see the queen.  There were only a few square inches of capped brood on the drone frame, but I took it out and put the old one back.  It had previously been thawed out.  The workers will remove or eat all the dead larvae and pupae.
There were four frames with capped brood, only two of them reasonably full.  I don't think the hive is strong enough to divide.  I emailed Jeremy Rose today to order one nuc.  This will go into the new hive.  I'll let my current colony alone and see how it does vis-a-vis the varroa mite as well as general vitality.

We then put the hive onto its new stand.  The bees had no trouble at all with this moving; I assume that is because it was very close to its original location.
Here is the new stand with the old hive in place and the new bottom board for the new hive, soon to be filled with bees.
I'm still driving around with a box and looking for a swarm for Olea's hive. I sometimes take a circuitous route on my way home, slowly driving along, looking at bushes and trees and listening for the buzzing of bees. 
Ian Coulson, a local beekeeper, has agreed to let me know if someone from Aptos calls him about a swarm.  I have also asked a man I know who does garden maintenance to call if he runs across a swarm.