854 
UNITING BEES 
very soon after the bees have been joined 
together. A swarm can, as a rule, be 
given, without any trouble, to any swarm 
that has come out the day previous; and if 
one will take the trouble to watch them a 
little, he may unite any swarm with any 
other swarm, even if it came out a week 
or more before. If inclined to fight, they 
should be smoked as before explained. 
While swarms can be united it is not ad¬ 
visable to unite a swarm with an old colony 
without smoking them at first or at least 
waiting after uniting. 
Perhaps a safer and a better way is to 
use a newspaper between the two stories as 
before explained; but when the newspaper 
is used on a hot or sultry day, it is advisable 
to poke a hole in it with a lead pencil to 
prevent suffocation. 
UNITING BEES IN THE SPRING. 
As has been pointed out elsewhere, unit¬ 
ing two weak colonies in the spring is 
usually unprofitable. Uniting a weak to a 
medium colony is quite a different thing, 
as will be presently explained. When there 
are two little weak colonies, or nuclei, one 
having a queen, it would seem the most 
natural thing to put the two together for 
additional warmth and to provide a queen 
for all the bees; but, unfortunately, theory 
is not here borne out by facts. One can 
unite nuclei in the spring; and while at 
the very time of uniting they will seem to 
make up a fairly good colony, yet in two 
or three days there will seem to be just 
about as few bees as there were before the 
uniting took place. This is because the 
moved bees go back to the old stand, and 
because the old bees die off. They would 
die anyway, whether in the old hive before 
uniting, and they would die after they were 
moved just the same. 
All of the foregoing has reference to 
periods early in the spring in the northern 
States. Later in the spring, along about 
the last of May or first of June, uniting 
can often be practiced to advantage, espe¬ 
cially if the newspaper plan is used. 
THE ALEXANDER PLAN OF UNITING. 
During the year 1905, and again in 1906 
and ’07, considerable interest was mani¬ 
fested thru Gleanings in Bee Culture in the 
Alexander plan of uniting a weak colony to 
a strong one in the spring. Many of those 
who followed the method were very success¬ 
ful. A few, however, failed. To these 
latter reference will be made later. The 
Alexander plan of uniting as carefully re¬ 
vised by Mr. Alexander himself is given: 
ALEXANDER METHOD OF BUILDING UP WEAK 
COLONIES IN EARLY SPRING. 
About six or seven days after taking the 
bees from their winter quarters, pick out 
and mark all weak colonies, also the strong¬ 
est ones, selecting an equal number of each; 
then all weak colonies that have a patch 
of brood in one comb about as large as the 
hand. Set all such on top of a strong colony 
with a queen-excluder between, closing up 
all entrance to the weak colony except thru 
the excluder. 
Where there are any that are weak, only 
a queen, and perhaps not more than a hand¬ 
ful of bees with no brood, fix these in this 
way: Go to the strong colony you wish to 
set them over, and get a frame of brood 
with its adhering bees, being sure not to 
take their queen; then put the queen of 
the weak colony on this comb with the 
strange bees, and put it into the weak 
hive; leave them in this way about half a 
day; then set them on top of the strong 
colony where you got the brood with a 
queen-excluder between. Do all this with 
very little smoke, and avoid exciting the 
strong colony in any way. If a cool day, 
and the bees are not flying, I usually leave 
the strong colony uncovered, except with 
the excluder, for a few hours before set¬ 
ting on the weak colony. The whole thing 
should be done as quietly as possible, so 
that neither colony hardly realizes that it 
has been touched. When the weak colony 
has been given some brood, and put on top 
in this careful and still manner, hardly one 
queen in a hundred will be lost, and in about 
30 days each hive will be crowded with 
bees and maturing brood. Then when you 
wish to separate them, set the strongest col¬ 
ony on a new stand and give it also some of 
the bees from the hive that is left on the 
old stand, as a few of the working force 
will return to the old location, especially if 
they are black bees or degenerate Italians. 
In every case that has come to my notice 
where this method has been reported a fail¬ 
ure it has been from one of two causes— 
either lack of brood in a weak colony to 
hold the queen and her bees in the upper 
hive, or smoking the strong colony so that, 
as soon as the weak one was set on top, the 
bees from below would rush up and sting 
every one above. Therefore avoid using 
smoke or doing anything to excite the 
strong colony. 
If done in a careful manner the bees in 
the lower hive never seem to realize that 
