1S3 
Scottish Fisheries in August 1819. 
be manifested, in spite of all the objections which have been urged 
against the salt laws, and the depopulating effects of emigration, 
the British Fisheries in these islands, and along this coast, with 
a little encouragement, will be wonderfully extended, and we 
shall ere long see the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in that 
state to which they are peculiarly adapted, and in which alone 
their continued prosperity is to be looked for, viz. When their 
valleys, muirs and mountains are covered with flocks, and the 
people are found in small villages on the shores. 
Art. XXIV . — An Account of a New Method of Uniting Bee- 
Hives. Communicated by the Reverend Andrew Jame- 
son, Member of the Wernerian Society. 
W^HEN a hive is too weak to stand over winter, or when it 
is wished to deprive the bees of their honey, without suffocating 
them, it is now the general practice to unite the hives, in either 
of these situations. The method of uniting bee-hives, as prac- 
tised by M. Huish, except in the hands of a very experienced 
apiarian, is attended with very considerable risk to the lives of 
the bees ; whilst BonnaFs method is not unfrequently at- 
tended by the destruction of a considerable proportion of the 
community. Feeling the want of some safe and effectual mode 
of uniting hives, particularly when the honey season advanced, 
I was induced to examine into the practice in this neighbourhood, 
and found a way of performing this operation of thirty years 
standing, of which, however, no public notice had ever been gi- 
ven. This manner of uniting hives, is the invention of the Re- 
verend Richard Paxton, Minister of Tundergarth, and his 
thirty years experience, on a very large scale, should give great 
weight to the invention. 
Mr Paxton’s method of uniting hives is this : — An empty 
hive being procured, is inverted on the hive from which it is 
wished to dislodge the bees, either to take their honey, or to unite 
them with another hive. Betwixt the two hives thus connected, 
a small piece of wood is so placed, as to keep these two hives 
about an inch apart on one side. The reason of placing this 
stick across the mouths, and between the two hives, is to pre- 
vent the bees, after being driven up the one side of the hive, 
