Oct. 12, 190S 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



713 



you have gone up against the wrong thing, and will meet a 

 snag every -time. 



Mr. Dadant — I would be very glad to hear bees are not 

 assessable. I have been paying taxes on bees for many years. 

 The argument is very good but it is not only bees; there is 

 the hive, the combs, the brood, the honey, the supers and 

 sections of foundation and all that belongs to the hive. I 

 pay taxes on my bees; I pay taxes on the comb foundation 

 I manufacture. All this belongs to the bees. If the bees are 

 not assessable, and all this other part of the property is not 

 taxable, I have $15,000 worth of goods on hand. I have been 

 paying taxes, and I would be ashamed not to pay taxes. 



Mr. Swift— Mr. Dadant does not bear in mind that he is 

 in a manufacturing industry. 



Mr. Dadant — We would suffer from foul brood if our 

 bees had it. 



Mr. Swift — You say your wax does not get affected by 

 foul brood. As a manufacturer with an industry with a 

 capital stock, then, you would be assessed upon it whether in- 

 corporated or as an individual ; but here is a man that has 

 got 50 colonies of bees on his farm— I don't believe he can 

 be assessed on them. If a test case was made, from the very 

 fact of its fluctuating character, I do not believe he could 

 be assessed. The honey might be assessed, and possibly the 

 hive, if you could fix what the value would be, but not that 

 which deteriorates and is so fluctuating it would be almost 

 impossible to determine. But the product of the bees in his 

 possession is property that is assessable. Just the same as in 

 your commission business if you have a thousand cases of 

 honey in your warehouse on the first day of April you are 

 assessed upon that, upon its market value, upon a fifth of its 

 fair cash valuation. But upon bees out in the field there is 

 no assessment. I don't believe it ever can lie. 



Mr. Colburn — I had hoped to continue this discussion on 

 foul brood because I am. particularly interested in it. I am 

 no lawyer, but listening to the gentleman here I want to say 

 this, he makes a particular point of ferce noturce. I want to 

 ask if the wild ox and the wild goat and all animals were 

 not at one time fercu natura? Mr. France has a great many 

 papers here pertaining to the legal status of bees. Quite a 

 number of decisions have been made lately in regard to that 

 very point. Bees sometimes leave my premises and go on the 

 premises of my neighbor. The question is whether I could 

 go after them or not. Mr. France might be able to tell us 

 about the legal status. As to bees being assessable in con- 

 sequence of their fluctuating nature, you might answer the 

 question by saying a man might have 50 cows on his place 

 and they may all die. Therefore I don't consider that is a 

 good argument in that view of the case, for the assessor 

 doesn't care a cent what is to become of that property ; if he 

 finds it in my possession he will assess it. The big factories 

 up in the stock yards have a million, or two million dollars' 

 worth of pork piled up there. When the assessor goes around 

 It is all in New York, but if it is there he will assess it. The 

 same way with bees. I think they are assessable if they are 

 there at the time the assessor comes around. 



Mr. Kimmey — I .want you to indulge me just a minute. 

 All of these men who have talked want this discussion 

 stopped. I am responsible because I asked the question. I 

 used to be a lawyer myself. I didn't know much law and 

 have forgotten a good deal I once knew. But I commenced 

 it! 1868 in the business and have been connected with it ever 

 since, and after listening to Mr. Swift on the question whether 

 bees are assessable or not, I believe he is mistaken. 



Pres. York — They used to be when you studied law ! 



Mr. Kimmey — You men that have been convicted at law 

 don't say anything. You remember the Irishman who said, 

 "I don't want to go to trial." The judge says, "You needn't 

 be afraid, you will get justice, and he jailed." He replied, 

 "That's just what I don't want." [Laughter.] It is true my 

 bees go out on my neighbor's lawn and gather their honey, 

 but it is also true that bees have been recognized by the laws 

 of this country as property, but prairie chickens have not 

 You can steal bees but you can't go over to the other man's 

 farm and steal nrairie chickens. Of course you can commit 

 trespass. But when you steal a colony of bees don't you !" - 

 lieve they are fcrte natura and that you can get out ni it 

 You will go to the penitentiary, probably. He can sell tli 

 prairie chickens after he shoots them. 



Mr. Smith— He can't sell them after he shoots them. 



Mr. Kimmey— There is another fellow that has Ijccii 

 caught. [Laughter.] If you obey the law you can sliooi 

 them. There is a certain time of the year. Do we want to 

 say we are going to own property that is valuable to us. (nit 



of which we make our living, and that it is not assessable? 

 If there is any such idea as that let us be honest and fair and 

 drop it. If they are not assessable I think they should be 

 made so. I rather insist upon Mr. Moore making a state- 

 ment because he came to my house and we had a peculiar 

 experience down there. Mr. Moore came to me from visiting 

 an educated gentleman, a man that knows all about the 

 anatomy of the bee and foul brood, and that sort of thing, 

 and Mr. Moore told me that this gentleman had one case 

 of foul brood. I had never seen any and I wanted to see, 

 and feel, and smell it. I went up there and I told the gentle- 

 man that I wanted to see the colony of bees that Mr. Moore 

 said had foul brood. He says, "You can't see any foul brood 

 here." He also said he had once been cleaned out entirely 

 by foul brood. I was ready to believe there was something 

 there. I know he bought some bees of another neighbor who 

 had foul brood. I had some of the same bees ; in fact, the 

 only ones I had to commence with came from there. I was 

 interested in it. He said he had a small nucleus that was 

 doing fairly well and in the meantime had a hive full of comb, 

 no bees, and he wanted those bees to take care of that comb, 

 and so set the hive with the comb on top of the nucleus. Con- 

 sequently the queen and some of the bees moved out, and then 

 came the cold weather last spring and the brood in the lower 

 hive died. I was ready to believe that story. He also said 

 that Mr. Moore said he was not an expert. I suppose Mr. 

 Moore said the same things to him that he said this morning. 

 I took it for granted there was no foul brood, and didn't in- 

 sist upon an examination. It seemed to me, then, and it 

 seems to me now— I want to be frank and fair about it — Mr. 

 Moore either ought to know what foul brood is, without go- 

 ing two years to the agricultural college, or else Mr. Moore 

 ought to stop inspecting. I believe after hearing him talk 

 here this morning that the bees of the gentleman I referred 

 to had foul brood, and that Mr. Moore knew it. I think 

 he wants to shake off some of his modesty and say he knows 

 foul brood when he sees it. I want to mention another thing 

 this gentleman told me. He said, "Notwithstanding I believe 

 there is no foul brood I am going to burn that thing up, hive 

 and everything," which he did that night ; and I believe that 

 is the proper spirit that any one should show even though 

 one may have a doubt in regard to it. A hive of bees of 

 course is not of much consequence, but if he finds it in one, 

 and there is more than one hive, he should be willing to "in- 

 vestigate. Mr. Moore came to my place and looked my 

 colonies over and did it in a very thorough manner, for which 

 I am obliged to him. I said, "How much do I owe you?" 

 He replied, "You owe me just one dollar, and I want you to 

 pay it to join the Chicago-Northwestern Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation. I want to state the facts, and I am impelled more 

 to say it by the remarks the gentleman made in the rear of 

 the room. I believe Mr. Moore has done his duty, and he is 

 a good man, and I don't want him to go around saying, "I 

 Hon't know," when he does. 



Mr. Moore — I am not correctly quoted in the case which 

 Mr. Kimmey has mentioned. The gentleman Mr. Kimmey 

 referred to merely plays with bees for pleasure. He told me 

 he had practically been cleaned out with foul brood, but that 

 he hadn't any at that time; and I certainly told him, as I 

 have told everybody, that I knew foul brood when I saw it, 

 absolutely, and I do know it. When it comes to these scien- 

 tific matters, in which every subject is involved if you come 

 right down to the very bottom of it, I say I am not an e.xpert, 

 as Mr. France or Mr. McEvoy is, because I have not got 

 their years of experience. But I absolutely know foul brood, 

 and I told that gentleman so, and he said, "I haven't got it.' 

 We examined one or two of his hives and the bees were very 

 cross ; I got stung repeatedly. We had smoke, too, lots of it. 

 When we got done with that hive I showed him he had foul 

 brood, and I showed him the proofs of it, and he admitted 

 that it was foul brood. There was also pickled brood in the 

 same frame with it in the same colony; and he didn't deny to 

 me at all he had foul brood in his apiary. 



Mr. Kimmey — When Mr. Moore was in our section he 

 went to every bee-keeper he could find, and spared neither 

 time nor pains in going to the bottom of all of them. I gave 

 him the name of every bee-keejier I knew within five or six 

 miles, and I understand from Iiearing from them that he 

 visited all of them. 



Dr. Miller — I have a resolution to offer : "Resolved, That 

 it is the sense of this Convention that it is desirable that bees 

 should be assessed and taxed." 



Mr. Smith — I might say that that same resolution was 

 passed at the State Bee-Keepers' Convention two weeks ago, 

 in Springfield. 



