# combining a split colony



## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

I am doing an Oldtimer queen rearing attempt. I took away a box from a strong hive with the queen and some nurse bees and kept them split for 3 days. I grafted some cells for my first attempt and added them yesterday afternoon after tearing down emergency cells. Chinese tool grafting was a bit interesting at first, but it seemed to get much better after the first 6-8 tries. Time will tell. The colony has been split for 4 days. Will they still accept each other in peace after 4-5 days? Oldtimer posted that it's good after 2 days or so, How long does it take before they would need a newspaper combine?


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

I'd say if they started cells i'd newspaper it just to be safe.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

The idea is to begin it as a starter hive, re combine with the queen to make it a finisher hive for grafting queens. I was doing this, but with more than a couple days in the separation. A thread from two years ago.



Oldtimer said:


> Last few years when I've been more involved talking to hobbyists, I have been wrestling with trying to think up a system for raising grafted cells that is both simple and can be done by someone with just a few hives. Here is one possibility. - Select a strong 2 brood box hive and put a queen excluder between the two boxes. 5 days later have a look, eggs will only be in the box that has the queen in it. Take that box a few yards away and put it on a new base and give it a lid. The queenless box is on the original stand and will receive the returning old bees. Yes it's true those old bees won't directly raise the cells, but just having lots of bees in the queenless (starter) hive will make them more likely to raise more of your grafts, and do it better.
> 
> Give the queenless box a couple hours to realise they are queenless then do your graft and put it in. If raising 16 or less cells, don't recombine the boxes till after the cells are capped. If raising more than 16 cells, recombine the boxes after one or two days. Combining is done by bringing the box with the queen back and putting that on the bottom. Then a queen excluder and the queenless box with the cells on top. No newspaper is need the bees will remember each other and unite peacefully.
> 
> ...


http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...and-finisher/page2&highlight=starter+finisher


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Thought you meant from a failed split. 
Interested if anyone does it like this and have it work. I would think once they were queenright again they would tear down the cells. Also question the quality of the queen cells as all of the nurse bees are in the other hive with the queen.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

I will let you know after Monday. I should have capped cells by then. The process of starter hive and finisher hive is written about here in an early post on that thread. 



Oldtimer said:


> To fully answer your question requires a book. So here's just a basic principle why queenless starter then queenright finisher.
> 
> The queenless starter should be set up with plenty bees and food then left long enough to realise they are queenless, then grafted cells are added. the bees now know they need to raise queen cells, and suddenly queen cells ready to raise appear in their midst, so they start work.
> 
> It doesn't take the bees too long though to realise they are starting a lot more cells than they need, because a queenless hive (which the starter is) is only needing one queen. So after a day or so they may stop caring for some of the cells or raise them poorly, that's depending how many cells you give them. So to solve that problem, at normally 24 hours the cells are transferred to a strong queenright colony. The queenright colony will raise more cells to a good standard because they will see cell raising as a swarming attempt and it is natural for swarming bees to build a good number of cells, all well cared for.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

I only ended up with 6 queen cells built out, 25% of them. It worked for the 6 nice cells though. If I just knew what the issues were in my attempt, it would help. Most were on the second bar, which makes me thing practice makes better outcome. It was an easy way to create a starter finisher hive combination. I will try another time or two this month.


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