190 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1 



is liable to critninal prosecution. A public 

 nuisance does not necessarily create a civil 

 cause of action for any person; but it may 

 do so under certain conditions. A private 

 nuisance affects only one person or a deter- 

 minate number of persons, and is the 

 g-round of civil proceedings only. General- 

 ly it affects the control, use, or enjoyment 

 of immovable property; but this is not a 

 necessary element according to the modern 

 view of the law. A nuisance, to be a pub- 

 lic nuisance, must be in a public place, or 

 where the public frequentl}' cong-regate, or 

 where members of the public are likely 

 to come within the range of its influence; 

 for if the act or use of property be in a re- 

 mote and unfrequented locality, it will not 

 be a public nuisance. A common nuisance, 

 according to English authority, is an un- 

 lawful act or omission to discharge a legal 

 duty, which act or omission endangers 

 the' lives, safety, health, property, or com- 

 fort of the public, or by which the public 

 are obstructed in the exercise or enjoyment 

 of any right common to all the people. 



Strictly speaking, a trade or occupation, 

 a business or industry, lawful in itself, 

 and which becomes a nuisance because of 

 its location, or the manner in which it is 

 conducted, or the character of the animals 

 or thing, is not a nuisance per se, though 

 it may be a prima-facie nuisance. 



3. Keeping Bees — IVhen and When Not 

 a Nuisance. — Whether bees are or are not 

 a nuisance is to be judicially determined 

 in each individual case, and it would seem 

 that the foregoing definitions were broad 

 enough to include them. Only a few cases 

 have found their way to the higher courts, 

 involving this subject; but with the devel- 

 opment of the fruit-growing industry the 

 bee's liberty is more than ever questioned, 

 and it is not unlikely that the future will 

 be conducive to much litig-ation between the 

 fruit-grower and the bee-keeper. 



Place of Keeping Bees.--One engaged in 

 the business of keeping bees may not right- 

 fully keep his bees in a place upon his 

 premises so as to annoy his neighbors. 

 Such an act is a nuisance. One of the 

 earlier cases on this subject was decided 

 by the New York Supreme Court (Olmsted 

 V. Rich, 6 N. Y. Suppt., 826), and other 

 courts have been content to follow it. In 

 this case the evidence showed that the 

 plaintiff and defendants were neighbors; 

 that the defendants were keeping a large 

 number of hives of bees in a lot immediate- 

 ly joining the plaintiff's dwelling-house, 

 and that at certain seasons they were a 

 source of great annoyance to him and his 

 family, and also that they could be removed 

 witViout material difficulty to a place on the 

 defendant's premises where they would not 

 disturb the neighbors. The action was in 

 the nature of an injunction to prevent de- 

 fendants from maintaining their apiary at 

 the place above named. The court held 

 that the case was a proper one for a per- 

 manent injunction. In such action the is- 

 sue was not as to defendant's motives in 



keeping- the bees, nor whether they had 

 knowledge of any vicious propensities of 

 the bees, but simply whether the condition 

 of things, as then and previouslj' existing-, 

 constituted a nuisance. The court held af- 

 firmativel3', and the bees were ordered re- 

 moved in order to abate the nuisance. 



On the other hand, an ordinance by a 

 city council which makes the owning, keep- 

 ing, or raising of bees within a city's limit 

 a nuisance pei- se is too broad, and is, 

 therefore, invalid. The most celebrated 

 case of this kind on record is that of Clark 

 V. City of Arkadelphia, Arkansas, i-2 Ark., 

 23. The evidence in this case showed that 

 Clark, who had kept bees in that city for a 

 number of years, was not in political har- 

 mony with those in power, and the latter 

 sought to punish him and get rid of his 

 presence by prohibiting- the keeping- of bees 

 within the corporate limits of the city. 

 Clark was ordered to remove his bees, but 

 refused to do so, and his arrest and con- 

 viction by the city court under the ordi- 

 nance followed. He appealed to the Circuit 

 Court, the latter dismissing the prosecution, 

 and then the State appealed to the Supreme 

 Court, wherein it is held that, "Although 

 bees may become a nuisance in a city, an 

 ordinance which makes the owning, keep- 

 ing-, or raising them within the city limits 

 a nuisance, whether it is in fact so or not, 

 is too broad, and is not valid." 



While bees have been kept for centuries 

 in towns and cities, it is a fact, so far as 

 we have been able to discover by a careful 

 search of the court records, that the city of 

 Arkadelphia is the first on record to at- 

 tempt to forbid them. It is conceded, how- 

 ever, that the keeping of bees in cities may 

 be regulated as to quantity and the manner 

 of keeping, or make the keeper responsible, 

 as in cases of other animals with danger- 

 ous propensities. This, however, is quite 

 a different proposition from that of an or- 

 dinance calculated to destroy a business 

 or industry altogether. "All ordinances, 

 arbitrary in their terms, and unreasona- 

 ble, and unnecessarily abridg-ing private 

 rights, are void," says Dillon on Municipal 

 Corporations. City ordinances can not be 

 levied at a mere private nuisance to one or 

 more persons. The nuisance must be pub- 

 lic and general in its charricter, and must 

 be an actual nuisance with sufficient evi- 

 dence to sustain it. Courts have, therefore, 

 taken knowledge of the habits of bees, and 

 hold that it would be impossible, at the 

 present state of the bee industry, for them 

 to be more than a private nuisance, for 

 which the person or persons injured or an- 

 noj'ed have their remedy as set forth in the 

 Olmsted v. Rich case, supra. 



The decision of the Arkansas court is a 

 valuable and stimulating precedent, is good 

 law, and a menace to those who attempt to 

 interfere with a useful and growing indus- 

 try, pursuit, or occupation. 



Our next article will be devoted to the 

 subject of damages by reason of the pres- 

 ence, keeping-, and owning of bees. 



