# Was going to combine



## buffaloeletric (Mar 11, 2010)

I'm posting this here since I've gotten no responses in the regular bee forum.

I divided my topbar hive 25 days ago because it had multiple queen cells with larvae in them. The original still managed to swarm at least twice that I know of. I went in two days ago and did not see a queen nor eggs still. When I go in today, if I still see no signs of a queen I plan on recombining this hive with the new hive I created with the original queen. The original hive that is now queenless I think, is in a permanent location. I cannot even move it a foot. The queen right hive is not permanently set, but I'm not so sure I could pick it up to move it, nor do I want to for fear of dropping it. Any ideas of how to go about recombining?

-Update I checked the original hive one last time before doing anything else and I did find a big fat queen. However I saw no eggs at all and the bees are a bit angrier than my other three colonies. The queen came from the same set of queen cells I found on July the 17 with larvae in them. I took the original queen out of the hive I found these queen cells in and left the original to do it's thing. Two swarms(that I know of) came out of this hive containing multiple queen cells and I managed to catch them both. The two swarms I caught have queens that have been laying for at least four days now. Should I still be concerned about this queen?


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

I had similar happen to friends hive this year. He walk away split them, 37 days later, found queen but no eggs/larvae. 14 days later, no eggs/larvae or queen. I would have never thought the queen ever made it back from flight if I didn't see her with my own eyes on day 37. The girls were very pissy both inspections. Had to combine before laying workers set in.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

Had a similar situation with different outcome. Had a swarm take off but there were queen cells. No worries... just wait. Did the "bee math" and waited. And waited. And waited. No brood, bees backfilling the whole hive with honey, and I am at "new brood should appear" plus 10 days. No brood at all, after checking every single frame. So, I find the only guy around with a queen to sell, suit up the next morning and dive in. And, there's a full frame of eggs; one queen looking at me smugly from her second frame, and another looking at me confused from inside the cage. that was a tense day.

I don't have any advice.  No matter what I do, my girls surprise me.


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## trishbookworm (Jun 25, 2016)

If your hives are within several yards, or in "smelling distance", then if you bring queenright bars to permanent location, and then REMOVE the queenright hive, the foragers will sniff out the new loc eventually. If there will be rain that night or constantly for the following days, that will be a big problem for homeless foragers who clump at the old loc, so choose the day carefully. They can survive a surprisingly long time, but it costs them and you want your foragers working for the hive, not to stay warm in the rain!

Probably it's easier to carry multiple bars in a cooler or something that is the right size so you're not hustling one at a time. Bet you already thought of that...

There will be quite a few bees left on the sides/bottom of the box. If you can bring the now-barless box so it is below or next to the permanent loc, the laggards may fly/climb in quite well. I have not had great results with dumping them on the ground in front - they just clumped there and looked sad. But it was not a queenright hive in my case, so for you with a queen going in the box, that should motivate any laggards for you.

I have also used empty comb or empty lang frames to "collect" wayward foragers who just hang out at the old loc - they climb on over 5 min or so, and I carry them to their new digs.


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