UNITING BEES 
853 
or for wintering at the close of the season. 
When there is only one yard of bees, as 
in most cases, one can unite even then if he 
will follow the directions here given. 
HOW TO PREVENT THE BEES FROM THE SAME 
YARD GOING BACK AFTER UNITING. 
After inclement or cool weather, during 
which the bees have been confined for sev¬ 
eral days, they may be united with little 
or no returning, when, if they have been 
going to the fields for nectar for several 
days, the old bees will be almost sure to go 
back. It is, therefore, advisable to wait 
for a spell of rainy or cool weather when 
the bees cannot fly much, during which 
time they will have been confined for at 
least four or five days. Then in the cool 
of the morning the nuclei can be moved 
to their permanent winter stands. At the 
moment of uniting it is advisable to use 
plenty of smoke, not only to avoid any 
possible fighting that may occur, but to 
disorganize them so that, when they seek 
flight from their new home, they will mark 
their entrance anew. It is also important 
to remove the old hives after taking the 
bees from them to unite with other bees. 
It very often occurs late in the fall that 
one will have a lot of nuclei without any 
brood. If these should be queenless, the 
bees of several of them can be shaken into 
a swarming-box and confined over night in 
a cellar or in a cool place. The intermin¬ 
gling of several families of bees, and con¬ 
finement in a box without combs, breaks up 
the old family spirit that formerly existed, 
and almost entirely eliminates all tendency 
towards the old home. This lot of bees 
can now be apportioned out to colonies 
that are not quite up to standard of 
strength as follows: 
In the cool of the morning, before any 
bees are flying, the hives of bees should be 
marked in such a, way that the apiarist can 
at a glance determine how many bees he 
shall give to each individual stand. He next 
approaches a hive. The marking on the 
cover shows that it can take two dip¬ 
perfuls of bees. He gives the box a jounce 
on the ground so as to pile the bees up en 
masse on the bottom. If they are disposed 
to fly up, he wets them down with a little 
spray—-just enough to dampen their wings, 
and thus impede their flight., Before they 
can crawl up on the sides of the box he 
now scoops up a bunch of the bees with a 
little tin dipper and dumps them in at the 
front of the entrance. If the hive in ques¬ 
tion requires two dipperfuls, then two dip¬ 
perfuls of bees it gets; and so on he dis¬ 
tributes bees to every hive that needs them. 
As a matter of precaution, every hive 
receiving bees like this should have its 
queen caged for 24 hours at least, in such 
a way that the bees can release her by eat¬ 
ing out the candy or gnawing away the 
comb. (See Introducing.) As a further 
precaution, after the bees have been distrib¬ 
uted in front of the various hives, an ex¬ 
amination should be made in about 25 min¬ 
utes to see that there is no fighting between 
the new family and the old. 
By uniting in this way there have been 
accomplished two things — strengthening 
the colonies that are not quite up to the 
standard, and disposing of all the weak¬ 
lings in the apiary. If the first box will not 
hold all weaklings at the first time, it can 
be filled the second or third time until all 
nuclei that are too weak to winter are 
cleaned up. 
NEWSPAPER PLAN OF UNITING. 
There is still one more way of uniting 
to prevent bees returning, and this may be 
practiced even when bees are flying to the 
fields if the weather is not too hot. The 
moved hive with its bees is put on top of 
another with a single thickness of news¬ 
paper between. By the time the bees above 
gnaw a hole thru, some time elapses. The 
confinement and the gradual uniting of the 
bees thru the hole in the paper avert all 
fighting and all returning of bees to the 
old stands, says Dr. Miller. During hot 
weather there is danger that the bees in 
the upper story may suffocate, in which case 
it is advised to punch a hole thru the paper 
with a lead pencil. 
UNITING NEW SWARMS. 
This is so easily done that directions are 
hardly needed; in fact, if two swarms 
come out at the same time, they are almost 
sure to unite, and two such swarms are not 
likely to quarrel. One of the queens will 
very soon be killed, but the extra one may 
be easily found by looking for the ball of 
bees that will be seen clinging about her, 
