During this search for the Queen, or with as little delay as possible, you, or some one for you, should be proceeding in a similar manner with the Bees in the other hive, with which those already fumigated are to be united. As soon as the Bees of the hive last fumigated are all composed and quiet, and you have found and secured one of the Queens, you may put the Bees of both hives together into an empty one, for the purpose of mingling them thoroughly together, and of sprinkling them at the same time with a little ale and sugar; this done, put them and _one only_ of the two Queens among the combs of the hive you intend them to inhabit, and gently shake them down into it. When you have thus got all the Bees of your two hives into one, cover it with a cloth and closely bind the corners of that cloth about it, and let them stand during that night and the next day, shut or closed up in this manner, so that a Bee may not get out; but not so close as to smother them for want of air. In the evening of the following day, having previously removed the hive, containing your united-stock, to its proper stand, viz. that which it had occupied before the operation, loose the corners of the cloth and remove it from the mouth of the hive, and the Bees will, with a great noise, immediately sally forth; but being too late to take wing, they will presently go in again; and remain satisfied in and with their new abode--new at least, to one-half of them, and new to the other half also when transferred into a fresh hive, or into boxes. But in taking away the cloth discretion and caution must be used, because the Bees will for some time resent the affront put upon them by such to them, no doubt, offensive treatment. The best time of the year for unions of weak stocks with strong ones is in autumn, after the young brood are all out--in the latter part of August, or any time during September: but for removals of stocks from straw-hives into boxes, the best time is early in the spring before the eggs of the Queen have changed and quickened into larvæ,--I will say--in the month of March; and if the weather is cold, it is advisable to perform the operation in a room where the temperature is about 60 degrees. For if Bees are displaced, that is--taken from their hive, in a cold atmosphere, it is but rarely that they recover from the effects of the fume so as to marshal themselves into working order in a box or new hive. But this they can do, and will do most effectually, under this agreeable temperature. As twelve hours are sufficient for the Bees to regain their former independency in their new domicil, you may place them at the end of that period on their summer stool, and they will work, as soon as the weather will permit them, as if they had never been removed from their former hive, nor in any way disturbed.