As I have had 2 wild hives in the orchard and field that have both been abandoned after a good few years of occupation...and seeing as I am fairly confident that there should be another one or 2 around owing to the evidence of there being plenty of honey bees on the walls .... is there any way of finding out its location other than by painstakingly going the rounds of every tree in the neighbourhood (could they have other haunts?) ?

One of my neighbours has asked me to let him have it if I can find it but I would like to find it on my own account anyway.

By the way I wonder how far from their hive they would forage. I don't want to deprive myself of their pollination to facilitate his honey making and his house would be about a mile and a half away as the crow flies.