Hold the front page

We took a copy of the Financial Times to the apiary. My favourite newspaper - not necessarily for its news coverage (though I think that is more balanced than many) but, first, because it catches light easily and burns strongly (good for lighting fires and smokers) and, second, because its pages are quite lightweight and relatively flimsy

We go to the apiary at sunset (21.25 tonight) when we need to do anything that relies on the bees all being in the hive. This could be moving a hive or, as we were tonight, combining two colonies into one. This can only happen when one of the two is queenless - if there is a queen in both, the colonies will fight to defend their monarchy. Where one is queenless, they accept the annexation with little protest but, to help ensure détente, we place a sheet of (not too tough) newspaper between the two boxes when we put one on top of the other

Something about the combined endeavour of chewing through the paper from both sides distracts them from engaging in conflict - jaw, jaw, not war, war. By the time the job is done, their pheremone cultures are merged and they engage with the future together, exchanging the news they got from the opposing pages