1001 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



819 



bility of transporting bees, yet if they do 

 so without any express restriction they are 

 liable as common carriers. But they maj' 

 for a less hire ag'ree simply to transport 

 bees, furnish cars, etc. ; and if the shipper 

 and owner of the bees agrees to the lower 

 rate, he can not hold them as common car- 

 riers. For II given reward the^' proffer to 

 become his carrier; for a less reward they 

 proffer to furnish the necessary means that 

 the owner of the bees may be his own car- 

 rier (Kimbal vs. Ry. Co., 26 Vt., 247). In 

 the case of Bixly v. Dccinar, 54 Fed. R., 

 718, the United States court held that, when 

 a vessel struck a hidden obstruction and 

 filled with water, and a cabin containing 

 bees floated to the shore, but no effort was 

 made hy the master to use care in saving 

 them, the steamboat line was held liable 

 for damages to them, though the vessel was 

 insured and was abandoned to the under- 

 writers as a total loss. 



BEES THE SUBJECT OF LARCENY. 



Bees in the possession of the owner are 

 the subjects of larceny, says the Indiana 

 Supreme Court in State v. Murphy, 8 

 Blackf., 498. Further, the court holds that, 

 when bees are in the possession of any per- 

 son, they are the subject of larceny. Much 

 depends upon what constitutes possession. 

 Generally it is regarded that the owner of 

 the soil upon which bees may be found is 

 the possessor thereof. While the rights to 

 animals /i';'<2' natures, as between the owner 

 of the soil and others, have been fairly set- 

 tled by a considerable series of cases, the 

 relative rights of parties, both of whom ac- 

 knowledge the superior rights of the owner 

 of the soil, seem never to have been precise- 

 ly described. But in a recent Rhode Island 

 case {Rexroth v. Coon, 15 R. I., 35), the 

 plaintiff, without permission, placed a hive 

 of bees upon the land of a third person. 

 The defendant, also a trespasser, removed 

 the bees and honey which had collected in 

 the hive. The court found that there was 

 no cause of action, holding that neither 

 plaintiff" nor defendant had any title or 

 right to possession to the bees or to the hon- 

 ey. It needs scarcely follow that a tres- 

 passer can not maintain, on the basis of 

 mere possession, an action against a later 

 trespasser. There may be some possible 

 doubt in a case of this kind where a person 

 has reduced the bees to possession by col- 

 lecting the bees in a hive, and left them 

 temporarily on the land of another; and if 

 so it would seem to give him actual physi- 

 cal possession sufficient for an action 

 against one who removed them. But about 

 the honey which tlie bees had collected 

 while on the soil of a third person, there 

 would be less doubt; but, strange to say, 

 in no case which we have examined does 

 the question seem to have been discussed, 

 much less decided, as to how far the law of 

 animals and bees ferce naturce applies to 

 their produce, such as eggs or honey. The 

 reason on which the law about the animals 

 is founded is wholly inapplicable to the 

 honey; but the Rhode Island case tacitly 



assumes tliat no distinction is to be drawn. 

 Hence, as a dictum, it would appear that 

 the honey, at least, belonged to the owner 

 of the soil. 



Bees are likened unto wild animals be- 

 longing to no one so long as they are in 

 their wild state, and property in them is 

 acquired by occupancy, hiving, and re- 

 claiming only, and are not the subject of 

 larceny unless they are in the owners' cus- 

 tody, as in a hive, bee-house, or otherwise 

 confined and within the control of the pos- 

 sessor or owner. 



CONFINEMENT OF LAYING QUEENS. 



Queens Caged when Laying to their Fullest Capacity; 

 does the Practice Result in Injury ? 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



The article by Mr. F. Greiner, August 

 15th, on the confining of laying queens in 

 small cages, is well worth a second reading; 

 and his question, " Do queen-breeders prac- 

 tice any such thing?" is most pertinent. 

 That injury is caused to such queens by so 

 confining them is, I think, well established. 

 In the Anier. Bce-Kceper for April, 1901, I 

 wrote on the cause of injury to queens in 

 shipment by mail, i. e., starvation; and it 

 is also the cause of injury to caged laying 

 queens, even though the bees have access to 

 them. A laying queen is receiving an 

 abundance of highly nutritious food, and 

 at the same time is developing a large quan- 

 tity of eggs. Suddenly shut off this food 

 supply, and what happens ? The forma- 

 tion of eggs does not and can not immediate- 

 ly cease, and the queen is soon in an ex- 

 hausted condition. Just how long the de- 

 velopment of the eggs continues I am una- 

 ble to state positively; but from the fact that 

 prolonged confinement increases the extent 

 of the injury, I imagine that it continues 

 for several days, though, of course, in a 

 constantly decreasing degree. We have 

 very little accurate data regarding this sub- 

 ject ; and until we accumulate more we 

 must necessarily do some guessing and 

 more experimenting. We do knozv that the 

 sudden confinement of a queen when in the 

 full exercise of her natural functions almost 

 always works serious injury, such queens 

 seldom doing as good work as before, and 

 generally dying early. We also knozv that 

 a queen laying slowly, as in a small nu- 

 cleus, can be caged with little or no appar- 

 ent injury. Also, I think I know that the 

 degree of harm from such restraint is mod- 

 ified by the kind of bees confined with the 

 queen. If slie has as an escort, young feed- 

 ing or " nurse " bees, then she will have 

 suitable nourishment for a time, perhaps 

 until the development of the eggs has near- 

 ly stopped. But if she has few or no such 

 bees, then she perforce starves; for while 

 honey will keep up the animal heat it will 

 do very little toward restoring wasted tis- 

 sue. A queen confined in a cage of wire 

 cloth or perforated zinc, even though all the 



