10r4 



GI.KANIXGS IN CEE CULTURE. 



69=; 



OVERSTOCKING A LOCALITY WITH BEES. 



Personal Rights of Bee-keepers; a Very Fair and 

 Candid Statement. 



BY W. M. WHITNEY. 



Such are questions that come up occa- 

 sionally for the consideration of bee-keep- 

 ers. In fact, in some localities the matter 

 seems to assume a somewhat serious phase. 

 A person keeping bees in a given locality, 

 by virtue of the fact of being the pioneer in 

 the business, and, perchance, in an ordinary 

 season, has the region sufficiently stocked, 

 it is contended, has the moral right, and 

 should have the legal right, to vrarn off all 

 persons attempting to carry on the same 

 business as trespassers from such territory. 



Passing over the question of the legal 

 rights of such a person, there can be no two 

 opinions as to what they are. Let us con- 

 sider the ethical side of the question. As 

 the ultimate result (the money value) is the 

 gist of this whole matter, it does not mate- 

 rially differ, so far as the rights between 

 man and man are concerned, from any oth- 

 er rural pursuit, nor, in fact, from any oth- 

 er line of business. 



Suppose that seme farmer starts out on 

 some special line of agriculture, as, for in- 

 stance, raising potatoes I have in mind 

 such a venture in New York, years ago. 

 The first crop brought in the neighborhood 

 of Si. 00 per bushel, and several times over 

 paid for the land. Farmers all through 

 that region caught the craze for raising po- 

 tatoes. Those who lacked seed, the next 

 spring bought at high prices. Potatoes 

 sold in the fall at 18 to 20 cents per bushel. 

 What right had these farmers to interfere 

 with this man's special industry by glut- 

 ting the market with potatoes? But who 

 gave him a monopoly of this special food 

 production to the exclusion of every other 

 farmer? This monopoly business is just 

 what we are all complaining about in al- 

 most every line of business. Overproduc- 

 tion is within the recollection of man} , of 

 every commodity raised on the farm — grain, 

 fruits, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, wool, etc. 



Farms have been mortgaged to extend the 

 business in hand, and lost by overstocking — 

 by overproduction and competition. Turn 

 on the search-light for the turpitude in 

 any of these cases, and find the guilty per- 

 son if you can. So it has been the world 

 over in every line of business. Successful 

 ventures in any branch of manufacture tend 

 to stimulate and extend the business until 

 overproduction follows, and, in many cases, 



bankruptcy is the logical sequence. Shall 

 we run down and punish all except the 

 pioneer in the various ventures which re- 

 sulted in general disaster? Any rule of 

 ethics that gives to an individual beekeep- 

 er the exclusive right to a given territory, 

 because he happens to be first en the 

 ground, should give the same right to a per- 

 son engaged in any other line of business 

 for the same reason. Nothing would suit 

 the monopolist better. The pioneer bee- 

 keeper wants a monopoly of the territory, 

 or, in other words, the business. What's 

 the difference? 



To illustrate the fallacy of the position 

 taken by those who claim a prior right, let 

 us take a case in point as an object-lesson. 

 Two years ago Mr. M. Ethics started bee- 

 keeping in a fine farming region having an 

 abundance of white clover, considerable al- 

 falfa, and many other honey- producing 

 plants, and no bees within se7eral miles of 

 him. I know of just such a location now. 

 He secured a little patch of ground for his 

 home, on which he located 100 colonies of 

 bees; he also secured an outyard which he 

 stocked with another 100 colonies. Being 

 the only person in the business, the outlook 

 seemed all that one could desire. A large 

 crop of fine clover and alfalfa honey was 

 secured, and marketed at satisfactory 

 prices as the result cf the venture; also, the 

 colonies had increased 50 per cent; hence 

 another outyard was established the follow- 

 ing year. The farmers began to opea their 

 eyes, and look about themselves, and to in- 

 quire one of another whether they had not 

 been stupid to let so much material wealth 

 of the farm go to waste all these years. 

 They began to read papers that told how 

 to keep bees. Mr. Ethics noticed that they 

 were stocking up all through his locality. 

 The following is substantially Mr. Ethics' 

 story as I get it from him through an inter- 

 view, a la Doolittle. 



He said that, being the pioneer in the 

 business, and as he had the locality fully 

 stocked, it was ethically wrong for them to 

 come into his territory and ruio his indus- 

 try. He said that was the way he looked 

 at the situation at that time. But they said 

 to him that they were there first — in fact, 

 were raised on their respective farms. 

 Still, he argued that he was there first in 

 the bee business; that the locality was ful- 

 ly stocked, and that any increase of bees 

 meant absolute ruin to the entire business. 

 He said, "You ought to have seen how 

 those farmers went for me. I didn't know 

 but they'd have my hide nailed up on the 

 barn to dry. the way 1 hey came at me." 

 They insisted that they owned the land on 

 which the blossoms grew; that they paid 

 taxes on their property to maintain the gov- 

 ernment; to support schools; to construct 

 roads, etc, and could not understand why 

 they had not the same right to furnish pas- 

 turage for their bees as for their cattle. 

 One man said he had just rented a fann of 

 200 acres about a mile and a half from Mr. 

 Ethics' home yard, on which there was 



