512 



June 13, 1907 



bee-keeper for a little satisfaction, then 

 I say the Association should defend 

 that member. 



Mr. Wilcox — I want to say that we 

 have another association — the National 

 — and that is a part of its work, a lead- 

 ing portion of its business — and he 

 should apply to that, and this Associa- 

 tion, as an association, should not med- 

 dle with that work at all. If we at- 

 tempted it we should have to levy a 

 tax upon every member sufficient to pro- 

 vide an income for that purpose. It 

 would be quite a tax. 



Mr. Horstmann — Most of the mem- 

 bers of this Association are citizens of 

 Chicago, and I say that we should 

 stick together. If we could put it on 

 the National Association, all right; but 

 what is the use of our having an As- 

 sociation unless we can be of some use 

 to each other? I say there is no use of 

 it. It is all well enough to come down 

 here and have these talks on different 

 questions. We, of course, are benefited 

 by them. Some are benefited more than 

 others. But we should defend our 

 members in cases of the kind I have 

 spoken of here, I think. 



Pres. York — I would like to ask Mr. 

 Horstmann what he means by defend- 

 ing them, if we have no money in the 

 treasury to do it with? 



Mr. Horstmann — I did not ask the 

 Association to defend me. I fixed the 

 thing all up; or I didn't myself, but had 

 a good friend that did it. The city would 

 have "fired" my bees off there if it had 

 not been for a good friend. 



Dr. Bohrer — If I may give a little 

 experience I had about 35 years ago, I 

 settled it very quickly. A man near me 

 had grape-vines. The juice was run- 

 ning out of the grapes and my bees were 

 around there. He said I must remove 

 my bees ; they were destroying his 

 grapes, puncturing them and taking the 

 juice. I said, "I think you are mistaken. 

 Bees can not possibly do that. Their 

 jaws are not so constructed that they 

 can cut the skin of a grape." He said, 

 "They are doing it." I said, "Have you 

 seen an individual bee do anything of 

 that kind?" "Why," he said, "there are 

 hundreds of them doing it all through 

 my vineyard. You have got to take 

 them away." I said, "If you can demon- 

 strate that they are actually injuring 

 your grapes, it will be right for me to 

 take them away, but unless you can es- 

 tablish that fact I will not take my bees 

 away. I have got the affidavit of Mr. 

 Quinby." I sent all the way to New 

 York for it. "I will get Mr. Langstroth 

 and have him testify in court that not 

 a man of you knows what you are talk- 

 ing about ; that it is utterly impossible 

 for a bee to puncture the skin of a 

 grape." Then he consulted an attorney, 

 who called on me in my office, and 1 

 showed him the bee through a micro- 

 scope that magnified about 100 diamet- 

 ers. I said, " Look at it, and if you 

 think it will puncture a grape I will 

 remove my bees." He was a reasonable 

 man. You will find some reasonable 

 men who are attorneys! He said, 

 "Bohrer's statement is true. Your 

 grapes are bursting or being punctured 

 from some other cause. The bees are 

 carrying off the juice." And the mat- 

 ter dropped. 



Mr. Wheeler — The drift of the con- 

 vention sounds to me as if we were not 

 members of the National any longer. 

 Is that the fact? 



Pres. York — We are members of the 

 National because we joined in a body, 

 and if we get into trouble we can call 

 on the National to help us out. 



Mr. Moore — Mr. France, in this con- 

 nection, will you say how much the Na- 

 tional Association has spent? 



Mr. France — In the ordinance line 

 from $200 to $300, one year $400. As 

 a rule, with these ordinance difficulties 

 the bees are not at the bottom of the 

 trouble, but that the neighbors to the 

 bees get in trouble, and complaints and 

 grievances arise, and finally the bees are 

 complained about and an ordinance 

 passed declaring them a nuisance and 

 ordering their removal. That is about 

 the way those things are led up to. 

 There are many cities in the United 

 States enforcing such an ordinance, and 

 you can not keep bees in those cities, 

 but we haven't it here. As I say, most 

 of these things come from some per- 

 sonal grievance. I recall where two 

 neighbors got to quarreling in that way. 

 The bee-keeper killed the neighbor's 

 chickens, and then he turned around and 

 killed the bee-keeper's cat, and it was 

 back and forth, and a swarm of bees 

 came out and clustered on the neighbor's 

 land on a shade tree, and before they 

 had time to get them out this neighbor 

 took a torch and burned them on the 

 tree. After a while they asked the city 

 to declare those bees a nuisance. 



Mr. Wilcox — There is one thing we 

 all ought to understand — perhaps we do 

 — the National Association was not 

 originally intended to defend everybody 

 that was threatened. It was intended 

 only to protect tliose where it should 

 involve something of general interest to 

 all bee-keepers or to the bee-keeping 

 industry, as in the case of Mr. Freeborn, 

 the first case that ever arose, where the 

 question was as to whether the clover 

 was damaged by having the nectar ex- 

 tracted by the bees. That is a ques- 

 tion that affects the industry generally. 

 I have had complaints made that buck- 

 wheat was injured in its yielding by the 

 bees depriving it of its nectar. If a 

 lawsuit were brought to collect damages 

 for nectar taken from buckwheat you 

 can see at once that almost every bee- 

 keep in the United States would 

 be willing ' to contribute, because they 

 are all interested ; but where it is a 

 personal quarrel they ought not. If 

 the National Association goes farther 

 than'its rules require, as it may some- 

 times, it will 'be in a case of that char- 

 acter, where the general welfare of the 

 bee-keepers demands it, not where it is 

 was a personal quarrel. 



On motion, an adjournment was tak- 

 en until 7 p. ni. 



First Day — Evening Session. 



For about a half hour before the 

 opening of the session a quartette com- 

 posed of Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe M. 

 Stryker, Miss Ruby W. Stryker and 

 Pres. York, accompanied on the piano 

 by Miss Kathryn Kletzing, entertained 

 the audience with bee-songs. Dr. Miller 

 sang also. 



Ckoss Bees. 



"How far from their hives are cross 

 bees likely to volunteer an attack?" 



Mr. Wilcox — If you change that word 

 "likely" 'o 'liable," I will say 20 rods. 



Dr. Miller — I think it is a variable 

 point. It depends a great deal upon 

 the bees, if I understand the question 

 it is, How far from the hives will the 

 bees volunteer an attack? You may go 

 to a hive and the bees will run after 

 you a great deal farther away from the 

 hive than that point where they would 

 volunteer an attack, supposing they are 

 coming towards the hives ; but I under- 

 stand the question is how far you are 

 safe from a volunteer attack. If you 

 had asked me 20 years ago I would 

 have said that 2 rods away you would 

 be quite safe. If you had asked me last 

 year I would have told you 20 or 25 

 rods, and I don't know how much 

 farther the thing is going. Really, that 

 is my question, and I am asking for in- 

 formation. I want to know how much 

 that thing will increase. 



Mr. Taylor — An old bee-keeper was 

 telling me what an experience he had in 

 the neighborhood of Lapeer, Mich. He 

 had been hunting bees, and he finally 

 found a colony in a hollow elm stand- 

 ing among other trees, and he cut down 

 the tree, intending, of course, to have 

 it fall free from the other trees and 

 gently; but, as luck would have it, it 

 fell with a crash and struck against an- 

 other tree and splintered it all to pieces, 

 scattering it all over. He said the road 

 was about half a mile off, but you could 

 not go past on that highway without 

 the bees getting after you. 



Mr. Duby — I think it depends a great 

 deal upon how you attend to them. The 

 more rough you are with those cross 

 bees, the more cross they are. I be- 

 lieve it is the method of attending to 

 them ; the more gentle we are with cross 

 bees, the more gentle they will be. 



Dr. Bohrer — M\' experience is thai 

 something depends upon the kind of bees 

 you have. 



Mr. Wilcox — Cross bees, the question 

 calls for. 



Dr. Bohrer — Some bees are crosser 

 than others, so it depends upon the 

 kind of bees, at last, that you have. If 

 you have the pure Cyprian bee I think it 

 will come for you in defense as far as 

 it can see you in making the attack. I 

 had a colony of them, but I got rid of 

 it as soon as possible. If you have 

 that kind of bees you may look out. 

 They are on the war-path. When I 

 opened a hive of those Cyprians I had 

 trouble. I could not do with smoke or 

 anything else ; nothing short of killing 

 them outright would answer the purpose. 

 Then I took their queen away and gave 

 them another queen, and as they died 

 out, naturally I got rid of them. But 

 the ordinary Italian bee or the black bee, 

 or the hybrid, I have never known to 

 attack horses. I have my farm horses 

 passing up and_ down the lane within 

 possibly 20 feet of where the bees are. 

 Bees are flying on both sides, but they 

 can not see the horses from the hives, 

 and they do not attack them. 



Keeping Ducks in a Bee- Yard. 

 "Is it safe to keep ducks in the bee- 

 yard?" 



