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For the American Bee Journal. 



Uniting Bees for Winter. 



G. M. DOOLITTXE. 



That bees can be united many times 

 with profit, is a tiling that is generally 

 known, but how to do it is not univer- 

 sally known, as appears by the questions 

 asked by many. Strong colonies can- 

 not be profitably united, for they are in 

 a better condition as they are, than 

 they would be when two or more were 

 put together ; but those that are weak 

 and queenless are the ones to be united, 

 in order to make them profitable to the 

 owner. 



Our usual plan of- uniting is this : 

 blow smoke into the entrance of the 

 hives of bees to be united until the bees 

 make a loud roaring, then select the 

 stand you wish the bees to occupy and 

 carry all to that place ; lift the quilt or 

 honey boards and smoke all thoroughly 

 again, then select the hive you wish 

 the bees to occupy and take out all the 

 frames, with adhering bees, and put 

 them into a hive or box for that pur- 

 pose; put the hive on the stand and 

 take a frame from the first one and 

 then the other, till the hive is filled, 

 then put on the quilt and the cover or 

 cap. Take the remaining frames and 

 shake the bees down at the entrance,tak- 

 ing a frame from a different hive each 

 time, till all the bees are off the combs, 

 then shake all the bees out of the hives 

 that may not have been on the combs, 

 and see that all enter the hive. If you 

 have any choice in the queens, kill all 

 but the one you desire to remain, other- 

 wise pay no attention to queens. Take 

 the hives and surplus combs and store 

 them away nicely, for another year. 

 Do not leave the hive or anything on 

 the former stand for the bees to go 

 back to, and they will ail remain with 

 the colony where they were united. 

 Many will tell you to move the hives to 

 be united a foot or so each day till you 

 get them together, but we consider this 

 a waste of time as well as a tedious 

 operation. 



The smoking of the bees so as to 

 cause them to fill themselves with 

 honey, and the general mixing up, in- 

 duced by each bee being a stranger to 

 the other, causes them to mark their 

 location anew, and if a few should re- 

 turn and find no trace of their former 

 home, they will soon go back to their 

 new location. To illustrate : several 

 years ago we united bees in this way 



for the first time, and on the next pleas- 

 ant day we saw bees hovering around 

 the place where they had formerly 

 stood. Thinking that perhaps they 

 would not find their way back and 

 would perish there, or go off as home- 

 less wanderers to die, we placed a hive 

 with several empty combs and a frame 

 of honey on their former stands. In 

 about an hour we went to see how many 

 had returned and found them flying to 

 and from the hives, quite briskly. We 

 soon perceived that those going out 

 were loaded and those going in were 

 empty, and we said to ourselves, they 

 were being robbed, but on examination 

 we found that these returning bees had 

 loaded up and were carrying the honey 

 placed in the hives to their new loca- 

 tion. We left the hives till night, when, 

 on examination, we found the honey 

 all gone, but not a bee had remained. 



If those to be united are light in 

 stores, take only the frames containing 

 the most honey, and if they have not 

 enough then, feed them. We usually 

 unite during the last of Sep. or the first 

 part of Oct., but if you have delayed 

 uniting your weak colonies till now, it 

 may be done the first of this month, on 

 any day when the bees can fly freely. 



Borodino, JST. Y.,Oct., 1879. 



®vcv %ttUv %ox. 



Garland, Sept. 19, 1879. 

 Enclosed find a small plant ; please iden- 

 tify and report in the Journal. It grows 

 on rocky and barren land, and is at this 

 time covered witli bees ; they seem to neg- 

 lect the asters and golden rods growing by 

 the side of it. I never discovered bees 

 working on it till the fall of 1874 ; at that 

 time it was very scarce, but is quite plenty 

 since the fires have burnt over the rocky 

 hillsides. The sample is of small size, and 

 the upper half of the stalk. It grows from 

 1 to 2 feet high. Jno. F. Eggleston. 



[This is solidago Mcolor, and so a golden 

 rod, although the flower is white and the 

 habit of the plant quite unlike most of the 

 flowers of this genus.— A. J. Cook.] 



Chillicothe, Mo., Oct. 4, 1879. 

 To brother J. D. Enos, greeting : My as- 

 sistant comes laughingly and calls my atten- 

 tion to your article on transferring bees, in 

 the present ( October) number of the Jour- 

 nal. Let me assure you that I have been 

 using for eight or nine years just the thing 

 you describe— only that I have a useful im- 

 provement that you have not. I bend the 

 wire in a " frame staple," as I call it, into a 

 fence-row zig-zag shape. This gives it a 

 spring margin that enables it to fit all frames 

 even though they differ in width (or length 

 if you use them lengthwise) as much as half 



