ESSEX SOCIETY. 96 



you will hear the bees come toddling down, like drops of hail, 

 and they will lie upon the bottom board of the hive as harm- 

 less as " sucking doves." Give the hive a few gentle taps on 

 its top and sides, to shake them all down, and remove it, 

 stripped of its bees, away from the place of your operations. 

 Take it to the house or barn, and put it into a dark room, 

 v/here robber bees cannot get at it. Now, after sprinkling your 

 tipsy bees with a very little honey, take another stock and put 

 it over them. Fumigate this second hive, though not quite so 

 much as the first, and leave it, after closely wrapping it round 

 with wet cloths to keep out all outsiders, and to keep in all in- 

 siders. By the next morning, you will find a coalition formed, 

 and the two parties getting along quite comfortably. Keep 

 them confined, though not wholly without air, all the next day, 

 and at evening of the second day, take ofi" the coverings and 

 open the door of the hive. The bees may rush out, but will 

 soon return and all will be quiet. As to which queen shall be 

 retained to be the mother, give yourself no trouble, the coali- 

 tion will settle that knotty question for themselves. It will be 

 best for the operator to have an assistant, and the whole suc- 

 cess will depend upon expertness, coolness and fearlessness. If 

 you cannot procure the fungus, take common blotting paper 

 and dip it into a solution of nitre, (a tea-spoonful to a pint of 

 water,) and after saturation, dry it by a fire. The fungus has 

 often and successfully been used by the writer ; the solution of 

 nitre is given on the authority of others. 



The united bees will get through the winter better than a 

 single stock. In fact, Gelieu, a French apiarian, carried the 

 uniting of stocks to the extent of joining four stocks to a fifth, 

 and the united stocks consumed but little more honey than an 

 ordinary single stock I By this method you save your bees, 

 and at the same time get the honey. You may strengthen 

 a feeble stock, or if your neighbor wants to '■' take up his bees," 

 to get honey in the old way, persuade him to let you '-' take 

 them up," in this new way : restore to him his hives and the 

 honey in them, and join the bees to your own stocks, all, of 

 course, with his leave ! Is not this better than fire and brim- 

 stone ? " 



The writer has usually employed a box of the size of the 



