Hives combined... now what???

[melliphile]

I combined two hives yesterday using the newspaper method.  How long should I give them to re-arrange everything.  How much re-arranging will I have to do?  Right now it's four deeps high.  Any commnts would be appreciated.

[tom]

Hello

  I would let the bees chew thru the paper and let them bee and if they have plenty of honey and you think they will make it thru the winter i would try to get them down to maybe two deeps. And freeze the other two until they need it for when they start to run low on food  then you can feed them back.

Tom

[Michael Bush]

They will chew through the paper in a day.  Why do you need to know how long it will take to rearrange things?  Basically until all the brood has emerged from the old brood nest (the one the queen isn't in).  Then they will start backfilling that with nectar/honey/syrup if there's a supply.