SPRING MANAGEMENT.—Chapter XIX. 
mer or fall, if two colonies, each having its own queen, are united without 
any measures taken to make the uniting gradual and peaceable, the bees of 
the two colonies are likely to fight each other desperately. 
The Newspaper Uniting Plan. 
It may be that a colony is found in the spring without a queen, when 
no new queen can be secured to introduce to it. In such a case, the news- 
paper uniting plan (as first practiced by that famous bee master, Dr. C. C. 
Miller) is to be strongly recommended. It is very simple and certain. Place 
ever the top-bars of a hive that has a queen a single sheet of ordinary 
newspaper, and the queenless hive is then placed on top. The floor will be 
under the lower hive, and the only cover will be placed over the upper hive. 
No sort of entrance nor opening is left in the upper hive, so that the only 
way the bees can get out of it is to gnaw a hole through the newspaper. 
Within a day or two this will be done. The hole at first will be big enough 
for only a single bee to pass through, and the intermingling of the bees 
of the two colonies will be so gradual and quiet that there will be no fight- 
ing. Eventually the whole paper will be gnawed away and the two colonies 
become one, and in a few days or a week all the frames of brood with all 
the bees can be confined to one hive. 
If both of the colonies to be united have queens, it is better for the 
poorer queen to be put out of the way by the beekeeper before the work 
of uniting by the newspaper plan is begun; but, if one of the queens is 
not destroyed by the beekeeper in advance, the bees themselves will do the 
job. The uniting is likely to be more peaceful if one of the colonies has 
been made queenless two or three days before beginning to unite. The 
lower hive, standing on its original location, should be left as the perma- 
nent home of the united colonies. 
Clipping of the Queen. 
Unless the laying queens have already been clipped, the clipping should 
be done during fruit bloom, while the weather is warm and some honey 
is coming in. At this time the bees will be good-natured and not inclined to 
rob. Also, during the middle hours of the day many bees will be out gath- 
ering nectar; so the hives will not be crowded with the bees, and the queen 
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How the queen’s wings should be clipped. 
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