230 BEE MANIPULATION. [Ch. v 



wrong hive will be stung to death, unless possessed of a 

 good booty whdrewith to disarm animosity. Similarly 

 on the admixture of entire colonies, if one has some 

 distinct ground of advantage over the other, there must 

 be a method hit upon to deprive it of this or else to 

 purchase its goodwill, for otherwise there will ensue a 

 ferocious and disastrous slaughter. If both are alike 

 frightened all will go well, and the same if both are 

 upon the wing in search of a home ; but quite otherwise 

 if one is self-possessed and active in its own abode, while 

 the others are frightened strangers and gorged, and it 

 may be still further demoralised by having lived under 

 an unfertile queen, or with none at all. But if both are 

 cowed alike by a good drumming on the hives, they may 

 be sprinkled so as to possess the same scent, and then 

 taken to a third position and shaken out on to a sheet 

 together, when they will enter the offered hive in har- 

 mony. If each colony has a queen, one of them may 

 be searched for and removed. 



A slight variation upon this method consists in driving 

 the bees of the one hive (see last section) straight\\-a)- 

 into the other, having first terrified the bees of the latter 

 by drumming until by their changed note they may be 

 concluded to be thoroughly subdued, and as a conse- 

 quence gorged with honey ; then, before their equanimity 

 is recovered, the others must be joined to them. A third 

 plan is the one usually practised with the Stewarton hive 

 (page 151), and which can be imitated with other hives, 



