€74 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



The table showing the analysis of the two 

 sugars is very interesting. Now, I should 

 also like to see an analysis showing the chem- 

 ical constituents of refined beet sugar made 

 in the United States. It probably would be 

 very much like the muscovado sugar. Per- 

 haps some of our readers are in position to 

 give us a table that will show the exact analy- 

 sis, for the purpose of comparison. 



I have had several conversations with Prof. 

 "Wiley ; and while I believe he has said that 

 cane sugar and beet sugar were the same 

 chemically, yet I feel satisfied that he recog- 

 nizes that there is a difference. I also feel 

 confident that he would not consider honey 

 and glucose as one and the same. Indeed, he 

 has published a pamphlet on how to detect 

 glucose in honey. — Ed.] 



THE BEE IN LAW. 



Qualified Property Right — How Acquired; Pursu- 

 ing, Reclaiming, Replevin. — Article 2. 



BY R. D. FISHER. 



Having in a previous article laid down the 

 general rules that govern property in wild an- 

 imals, we shall endeavor to show how the 

 general nature of this class of property is ap- 

 plicable to bees. 



Bees are classed with and regarded as wild 

 animals ; therefore, as previously stated, a 

 qualified property right may be obtained in 

 them by reclaiming them and making them 

 tame by art, industry, and education, or by so 

 confining them within one's own immediate 

 power that they can not, as a body or swarm, 

 escape and use their natural liberty. There- 

 fore, since bees are wild animals, and until re- 

 claimed and hived no property right can be 

 acquired in them, hived bees are the bona-fide 

 property of the one who has reclaimed them, 

 notwithstanding a temporary escape. So long 

 as the owner can identify them they belong to 

 him, and not to the owner of the soil to which 

 they escape, although he can not enter the 

 land to retake them without consent or com- 

 mitting a trespass. But even in such case it 

 will be seen, during the existence of this qual- 

 ified right, bees are under the protection of 

 the law the same as any other property. Eve- 

 ry invasion of this property is redressed in the 

 same manner, and reclaimed after the same 

 forms of law, as any other property of the 

 same class. 



Bees are regarded in law as a common spe- 

 cies of property, an article of trade or barter, 

 and the wildness of their nature by practice 

 and art has become essentially subjected to 

 the will and power of man. 



FLIGHT AND PURSUIT. 

 In case a swarm fly from the owner's hive, 

 his qualified right continues only so long as 

 he can keep them in sight, and possesses the 

 power to pursue them where he has a right to 

 pursue, or otherwise positively and distinctly 

 identify them. The difl&culties in reclaiming 

 bees after taking flight are many. The deci- 

 sions of our courts furnish numerous peculiar 



circumstances, and unfold the difficulties in 

 reclaiming bees that have escaped from the 

 hives or soil of the original owner. In the 

 case of Goff vs. Kiltz (15 Wend. N. Y., 550), 

 the New York Supreme Court held that, where 

 a swarm of bees left the hive of the plaintiff, 

 and went into a tree on the land of another, he 

 having followed the bees and marked the tree 

 in which they entered, while he had no right 

 to enter upon the property to recover them 

 without the consent of the owner, yet he could 

 maintain an action of trespass and damages 

 against a third party who entered the land, 

 cut the tree down, killed the bees, and took 

 the honey away. 



Puffendorf, in his Law of Nature, chapter 6, 

 says : " While bees are no doubt wild by na- 

 ture, since their custom of returning to their 

 hives doth not proceed from their familiarity 

 with mankind, but from their secret instinct, 

 they being in all other respects utterly un- 

 teachable, it is, nevertheless, one of Plato's 

 laws, whoever shall pursue the swarms which 

 belong to others, and, by striking on the 

 brass, shall draw them with the delightful 

 sound to settle near himself, let him make 

 restitution to the owner." But it is held in a 

 Scotch case {Harris vs. Elder, 57, J. P., 553), 

 that reclaimed bees remain the property of 

 the owner only so long as he is pursuing them 

 where he is entitled to go, and that, if they 

 come upon another's land, that person is en- 

 titled to prevent pursuit on his land, and be- 

 comes the owner of the bees if he hives them. 

 This is not good law. As a general proposi- 

 tion, and by the weight of authority in this 

 country, it seems that bees belong to the first 

 party reducing them to his possession, and, 

 while followed from the hive of their owner, 

 and located by him, are held to be his proper- 

 ty unless he abandons them. 



The New York court, in the case of Goff vs. 

 Kiltz, above, said : "They remain his prop- 

 erty notwithstanding a temporary escape : the 

 owner keeping them in sight, and marking 

 the tree into which they entered, they belong 

 to him and not to the owner of the soil." It 

 was argued that the owner of the soil was en- 

 titled to the tree and all within it. The court 

 said : " This may be true so far as respects an 

 unreclaimed swarm. But if animals ferce 

 naiurce, that have been reclaimed, and a qual- 

 ified property right obtained in them, escape 

 into the private grounds of another in a way 

 that does not restore them to their natural 

 condition, a different rule obviously applies. 

 They are then not exposed to become the 

 property of the first occupant or possessor aft- 

 er their escape. The right of the owner con- 

 tinues ; and, though he can not pursue them 

 without due process of law, without being lia- 

 ble for trespass, still this difficulty should not 

 operate as an abandonment of the bees to 

 their former liberty." 



HOW RECOVFRED — REPLEVIN. 



Replevin is the universal remedy in the 

 United States when chattels have been wrong- 

 fully taken or are wrongfully detained from a 

 claimant, and he seeks to recover them in spe- 

 cie instead of satisfaction in damages. It is a 



