How to move bees to a new hive?

I've got a bunch of bees and I'm trying to move them to a new hive.

I don't have silk touch so I can't take them with me in the existing hive. I hold a flower and they follow me to the new hive, but as soon as I stop holding the flower, most of them start trying to fly back to the original hive, despite the fact that it's not that close or easy to get to. (The new hives are in a building up a bunch of stairs.)

I have tried boxing up the exits with dirt blocks so they can't escape and even putting flowers on those blocks, but even after keeping it this way for some time many of the bees still aren't interested in the new hives and try to escape as soon as a path is available.

There are plenty of flowers around the new hives, but they don't seem interested in those either. The mainly congregate off in a corner together and ignore the hives and flowers completely.

How do I get the bees to call the new hives home?

Solution 1:

It will likely be necessary to destroy the original hive, but this is risky due to the fact that the bees will aggro on you if you destroy it, and if a bee attacks you, they will die like real bees. I recommend trapping them in the location with the new hive, with a few flowers around, and destroying the old hive while waiting for the bees to unaggro and resume their normal activities.