# Recombine Failed Split?



## Pete O (Jul 13, 2013)

If it's only been three days since you made the split, I'd just go ahead and dump them back into the host hive.


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## PC-Bees (Jun 5, 2016)

I'll try not to repeat my whole post, but my MASSIVE amount of inexperience (29 days), tells me a recombine didn't work for me. I ended up with two hives and a nuc after a failed split (was actually trying to cut comb and attach to bars but failed badly and put comb back in nuc - and left 5 started comb in a to bar hive). A week later a swarm took off from the hive with fresh top bar comb. I transferred the nuc frames into a second top bar with its inhabitants and caught my swarm in a papaya tree and put them in a nuc with top bars until I finish a Langstroth for them. I put a feeder in front of their nuc today, but I think it led to some rubbing and fighting. I saw 3 or 5 bees dragging single bees out of the nuc and found about 4 our 5 dead wet bees on the pitch this evening. I also had at least a dozen dead in a catcher under the second top bar hive. The original top bar hive (what's left of them after the swarm) have barely left their hive since the swarm left... Maybe all babies? I hope I get better at this... I did adopt a feral requeened nuc as my startup for everything, so your mileage on re combining will probably vary.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

I recombined them back with the parent colony and it looks fine.
I didn't use anything like newspaper or even spray them with scented sugar water.


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## Flycaster (May 18, 2015)

3 days doesn't seem like a lot of time to tell it has failed. What were your criteria for deciding that? 

Cheers


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## COAL REAPER (Jun 24, 2014)

all older bees flew back to parent hive?


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

better frame selection for your splits. Capped brood if old enough will emerge in a few days to a week and populate the split. uncapped brood comes with nurse bees that will also stick around. a queen does not need a lot of bees to get mated. So allowing time for capped brood to emerge works as well as having time for even open brood to develop and emerge before the queen needs them. In all there is a bit of a touch or selection in the frames used for a split. Another trick is to place the nuc where the original hive was and let bees return to it. I personally don't like or use this method. But it sounds like it would work.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

I had a feeling that I had failed on day 1.
I made a stupid mistake. Like Daniel Y said, I should've moved or shaken off bees from open brood. To get the nurse bees.
And I also didn't put in enough supplies. (honey, pollen)


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## Flycaster (May 18, 2015)

Ah ok cheers, 

Hopefully they're all good now 😊


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

Flycaster said:


> Ah ok cheers,
> 
> Hopefully they're all good now ��


I just checked them today.
The parent hive (w/ combine) is doing great! There was one huge frame (comb (TBH) 17in x 9in) that was *packed* with straight pollen of many colors. (bright yellow, brown, orange, blue, light green/grey, and white)


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