UNITING BEES. 



447 



UNITING BEES. 



directed. If you have followed the advice 

 w e have given, you will have little uniting to 

 do, except with queen-rearing nuclei; and 

 with these you have only to take their hives 

 away and set the frames in the hive below, 

 when you are done with them. If the hive 

 below is a strong one, as it should of course 

 be, just set the frames from the nucleus into 

 the upper story, until all the brood has 

 hatched. If you wish to make a colony of 

 the various nuclei, collect them during a 

 cold day, and put them all into one hive. If 

 you have bees from three or four, tliey will 

 unite better than if they came from only two 

 hives, and you will seldom see a bee go buck 

 to its old home. A beginner should beware 

 of having many weak colonies in the fall to 

 unite. It is much safer to have them all 

 strong and ready for winter, long before 

 winter comes. 



UNJTING NEW SAVAims. 



This is so easily done that we hardly need 

 give directions ; in fact, if two swarms come 

 out at the same time, they are almost sure 

 to unite, and we do not know of two such 

 swarms quarreling. One of the queens will 

 very somi be killed, but you may easily find 

 the extra one by looking for the ball of bees 

 that will be found clinging about her, very 

 soon after the bees have been joined to- 

 gether. A swarm can almost always be given 

 without trouble, to any swarm that has come 

 out the day previous; and if you will take 

 the trouble to watch them a little, you may 

 unite any swarm with any other new swarm, 

 even if it came out a week or more before. 

 Smoke them when inclined to fight, as we 

 told you before, and make them be good to 

 the new comers. 



UNITING BEES IN THE SPRING. 



As we have pointed out elsewhere, unit- 

 ing two weak colonies in the spring is 

 usually unprofitable.* When there are two 

 little weak colonies, or nuclei, one having 

 a quetn, it would seem the most natural 

 thing in the world to put the two together 

 for additional warmth and to provide a 

 queen for all the bees ; but, unfortunately, 

 theory is not here borne out by facts. We 

 have united nuclei in the spring; and while 

 at the very time of uniting they would seem 

 to make up a fairly good colony, yet in two or 

 three days there would seem to be just about 

 as few bees as there were before the uniting 

 took phue. The trouble is, that, if there is 

 weather when they can fly, the bees that have 



* Uniting a weak to a strong- colony Is quite a dif- 

 ferent thing, as will be presently cxplnlned. 



been moved will go back to the old home to 

 die, and, as a natural result, in three or four 

 days there will be only a little cluster where 

 there was the fair colony before. Uniting, 

 when inacticed to any advantage at all, is 

 usually done late in the fall. 



A nucleus from an out - apiary can be 

 brought home and united with a nucleus at 

 the liome yard, or at any other yard. There 

 woidd be no returning of bees then, and the 

 two clusters will stay together, sharing each 

 other's lieat and enjoying the privilege of 

 having a queen over all. 



THE ALEXANDEU PLAN OF UNITING WEAK 



COLONIES. 



During the year 190-5, and again in 190(3 and 

 7, a good deal of interest was manifested 

 through Gleanings in Bee Culture in the Alex- 

 ander plan of uniting a weak colony to a 

 strong one in the spring. Many of those 

 who followed the method were very success- 

 ful. A few, however, failed. To these latter 

 we will refer later. The Alexander plan of 

 xuiiting is given by Mr. Alexander himself 

 as follows after he had carefully revised it: 



AI.KXANDEK METHOD OF BUILDING UP WIAK COf.O- 

 NIES IN EAltLY S^■R[^G. 



About six or seven days after taking your bees 

 from their winter quarters, pick out and mark all 

 weak colonies, also your strongest ones, marking an 

 equal number of each; then all weak colonies that 

 have a patch of brood in one comb nbout as large 

 as youi- hand, t'et all such on top of a strong colony 

 with a queen-excluder between, closing up all en- 

 trance I o the weak colony except through the exclu' 

 der. Then there are those that are veiy weak that 

 have only a queen, and perhaps not more thtin a 

 handful of bees with no brood. Fix these last named 

 in this way : Go to the strong colony you wish to Fet 

 them over, tind get a frame of brood with its adher- 

 ing bees, being sure not to take their queen; then 

 putthequeenof the weak colony on this comb with 

 the strange bees, and put it into the weak hive; leave 

 ihemin this way about half a daj'; then set tliem 

 on top of the strong colony where you got the breed 

 with a queen-excluder between. Do all this with 

 very little smoke, and avoid exiiting the strong 

 colony in any way. If a cool day, and the bees are 

 not flying, I usually leave the strong colony uncov- 

 ered, except with the excluder, for a few hours be- 

 fore setting on the weak colony. The whole thing 

 should be done as quietly as possible, so that neitV er 

 colony hardly realizes that it has been touched. 

 When the weak colony has been given some brood, 

 and put on top in this careful and still manner' 

 hardly one queen in a hundred will be lost, and in 

 about 3U days each hive will be crowded witli be es 

 and maturing brood. Then when you wish to sei a- 

 rate them, set the strongest colony on a new stai d 

 and give it also some of the bees from the hive that 

 is left on the old stand, as a fewof the working force 

 will return to the old location, especially if thej' are 

 black bees or degenerate Italians. 



In every case that has come to my notice wliere 

 this method has been reported a failure it has been 



