50

48 CHAPMAN'S HANDY-BOOK

where you stake the bees down, that they may not be
crushed by the edges of the box which you put over
them ; then lap up the corners of the cloth, and your
part of the work is done. You will hear a houd hum-
ming noise, and the bees whom you have dislodged will
ascend into the new hive, and peaceably amalgamate
with the other swarm. Just at dusk, carefully unlap
the cloth, and if any considerable cluster of bees is
gathered outside of the box, as is sometimes the case,
brush them gently down with a feather, or with your
finger, if you prefer it, and guide them under the hive ;
for bees are tractable creatures, and gentle withal, if
they are gently handled ; but they are not deficient in
courage ; if you provoke them through ignorance or
carelessness, you must take the consequences. When
they have all gone up into the hive, put them quietly on
their bottom board, and move them into their apiary
where they are to stand, or else make this your first
work the following morning. Give the double stock
sufficient room, and they will set to work vigorously.
Two contiguous hives in my apiary united themselves
one year ; one swarm deserting four or five combs which
they had begun to build. It may be that they had no
queen, for I found no grubs in the cells which they left.
This double hive has since received a fresh accession of
strength, a large portion of another swarm having joined
them, going "promiscuous like" into the hive, where
they were, to my surprise, well received. Had a single
bee pokonoad into the hive, she would have been imme-
diately seized and put to death. And now this stock is
the very best I have in my apiary, filling four boxes,
and working away vigorously too in a glass, which I
put on top of the original hive the day it swarmed.
Fifty strong hives are worth more, and will give more
honey to their owner, than two hundred and fifty weak
ones.

Stocks may be united in this same way, though they
do not swarm exactly on the same day. In this case you
will of course knock the fresh swarm on to the cloth, and
place over it the hive in which the combs are already
begun. It is as well previously to turn up the latter