SPRING MANAGEMENT OF BEES 13 
by a perforated zinc, each in a separate brood-chamber, would 
have been deemed some years ago impracticable; but if it 
be true that the bees recognize their queens largely by colony 
odor, then the two queens in the hive at the same time, so long 
as they can not get at each other, will be tolerated by the 
bees because they smell alike. Queen-breeders have been famil- 
iar with the fact that two queens can be maintaind in one hive, 
separated from each other by perforated zinc. Occasionally, 
however, the queens will fight through one of the perforations, 
with the result that one will be stung to death by her oppon- 
ent. In that case, possibly the bees will take a hand in the 
fracas. But these cases seem to be rare. 
When I visited Mr. Alexander last summer he showed me a 
hundred or so colonies where he had two queens in at the 
same time. At the time, he had an upper entrance so that the 
bees in the upper story would not be compelled to go clear 
down through the upper set of combs, lie explained how it 
was possible, in connection with his feeding, to get a large 
amount of brood through the agency of two queens, and yet 
none of that brood would suffer, as would be the case where 
the weak colony had to depend entirely on its own body heat 
on its own stand. Yes, here was the evidence or proof of the 
pudding, right before my eyes. It could not be gainsaid. 
We should be glad to have our readers test this method of 
uniting, and report the results. The suggestion comes right 
in the nick of time for most northern localities. 
Mr. Alexander does not say that the uniting takes place 
shortly after or at the time of taking the bees out of the cellar. 
If the bees of the weak colony had been out for two days, 
and had marked their location, many of them would be lost in 
returning to the old stand; but the fact that Mr. Alexander 
speaks of the uniting taking place as soon as they have un- 
capped brood would indicate that the bees had had a flight 
or two, and that their weak condition had been discovered after 
they had been set out. 
He will doubtless cover these points more fully in a sub- 
sequent article! but for the present, at least, I see no reason 
why a very weak colony could not be united to a strong one, 
putting perforated zinc between at the time of taking them out 
of the cellar. As we have tested this principle of dual queens 
only in a queen-rearing way in the summer, there may be some 
practical reason why uniting bees just out of the cellar would 
not work. 
In the November ist issue of Gleanings, by way of 
reply to critics who had failed to make the plan work 
with them he added more particulars as follows: 
About six or seven days after taking your bees from the 
winter quarters, pick out and mark all your weak colonies, also 
Wir strongest ones, making an equal number of each, then all 
^Pak colonies that have a patch of brood in one comb about 
as large as your hand. Set all such on top of a strong colony 
with a queen-excluder between, closing up entrances to the 
weak colony except through the excluder. Then there are those 
that are very weak that have only a queen, and perhaps not 
