A weak colony may frequently with advantage be added to another, or three may be made into two. And not only may this be done with new swarms, but in autumn, when there is no brood in the combs, it may be carried out also with stocks, the combs that are extracted being taken care of for use when required. After working hours is the best time for this operation. It is not, however, altogether a simple one, as strange bees will not intermix unless measures are taken to overcome their natural hostility to each other. Whatever be the number of hives in an apiary, the bees of each know the smell of their own companions. A single bee that enters the wrong hive will be stung to death, unless possessed of a good booty wherewith to disarm animosity. Similarly on the admixture of entire colonies, if one has some distinct ground of advantage over the other, there must be a method hit upon to deprive it of this or else to purchase its goodwill, for otherwise there will ensue a ferocious and disastrous slaughter. If both are alike frightened all will go well, and the same if both are upon the wing in search of a home; but quite otherwise if one is self-possessed and active in its own abode, while the others are frightened strangers and gorged, and it may be still further demoralised by having lived under an unfertile queen, or with none at all. But if both are cowed alike by a good drumming on the hives, they may be sprinkled so as to possess the same scent, and then taken to a third position and shaken out on to a sheet together, when they will enter the offered hive in harmony. If each colony has a queen, one of them may be searched for and removed. A slight variation upon this method consists in driving the bees of the one hive (see last section) straightway into the other, having first terrified the bees of the latter by drumming until by their changed note they may be concluded to be thoroughly subdued, and as a consequence gorged with honey; then, before their equanimity is recovered, the others must be joined to them. A third plan is the one usually practised with the Stewarton hive (page 151), and which can be imitated with other hives, by means of ekes or nadirs; this is usually carried out in the evening, when the quietude appears efficacious in settling all differences without the necessity of any other precautions. A fourth is as follows: At dusk, dislodge the bees on to a cloth, sprinkle them with sweet syrup scented with essence of peppermint (as a means of bribing their new hosts to receive them), and place the hive to which it is intended to join them over the mass; they will gradually ascend into the hive placed for them, and early next morning the hive, with its slender stock thus augmented, may be removed to its stand. Should the operator not have been successful in gaining possession of the queen, he may leave it to the bees themselves to decide which queen they will have.