852 
UNITING BEES 
ana; but the white tupelo (N. aquatica ) 
and the sour gum or pepperidge (N. syl- 
vatica ) have a much wider distribution. In 
the Yazoo Delta, Mississippi, the white tu¬ 
pelo does not appear to be one of the sur¬ 
plus-making plants, since none of the bee¬ 
keepers secure a surplus before June, and 
the white tupelo blooms much earlier. In 
the flood plains of Louisiana white tupelo 
yields a veritable flood of nectar, and the 
bees are busy on the bloom from early dawn 
until sunset; but the flow is of short dura¬ 
tion. The river swamps of eastern Texas, 
mark the western limit of the white tupelo. 
The banks of the Nueces River are lined 
with white tupelo and sour gum ( N. sylvat- 
ica ), the belt of timber being from one to 
two miles wide. In southern Arkansas 
white tupelo is valuable, and sour gum has 
also a wide distribution. White tupelo is 
also listed as a honey plant in western 
Tennessee and western Kentucky. 
u 
UNITING BEES. —This term is used to 
refer to the putting together of two or 
three nuclei or weak colonies, either from 
the same yard or from other yards. The 
operation is just the reverse of dividing, 
in which process a colony is split up into 
several smaller units. See Dividing, In¬ 
crease, and Nucleus. 
When several families of bees are put 
together they may or may not quarrel, de¬ 
pending on circumstances. If the weather 
is warm, and the bees are hybrids or 
blacks, they may, at the moment of uniting, 
enter into a free-for-all fight. The result, 
unless stopped by the timely use of smoke, 
may be almost the annihilation of one or 
both lots of bees. As a rule, even without 
smoke there will be no quarreling where 
gentle strains of bees like Italians are 
used; and even when they have these 
“family disturbances” they can be “ad¬ 
justed” very nicely by the use of plenty of 
smoke. Sometimes more smoke will be 
needed than at others, especially if the two 
lots of bees are of fairly good strength, and 
persist in stinging each other to death. 
In any case after uniting without smoke 
it is advisable to watch the bees for a few 
minutes to see if there is any trouble later. 
Many a lot of fine bees have been ruined 
because, after uniting, the apiarist did not 
go back a few minutes later to see if all 
was well. 
There is another difficulty in uniting; 
and that is, that the old bees, if taken from 
the same yard, are quite, apt to go back to 
the old stand. This is especially true if 
the uniting is performed during or imme¬ 
diately following a honey flow. Young 
bees that have never been out of the hive 
will stay where they are placed, and per¬ 
haps a majority of the old ones. 
If the several families to be united all 
have queens, no attention need be paid to 
them if there is no choice between them. 
If one is better than the rest, cage her 
after uniting and kill the others. This is a 
precaution. 
The old-fashioned black bees can be 
moved about from one part of the apiary 
to another with less trouble than the Ital¬ 
ians because the blacks will find their loca¬ 
tion better. But when uniting by the news¬ 
paper plan (to be described further on) 
this point need not be considered. 
In these days, when out-apiary beekeep¬ 
ing is practiced on so large a scale, the 
weak colonies or nuclei of two separate 
yards can be united very easily without 
any returning. Where one finds a num¬ 
ber of undersized or weak colonies in two 
or more of his yards, he can put the weak¬ 
lings of one yard with the undersized or 
medium-strength colonies of another, thus 
bringing them all up to normal strength 
either for honey-gathering in early summer 
