20 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



direction as the result of your deliber- 

 ations. You represent no mean voca- 

 tion. Ever since and before Jacob 

 sent as a present to propitiate the hard 

 master in Egypt, a little balm, and a 

 little honey, spices and myrrh; ever 

 since Columella wrote, and Viruil and 

 Horace sang, the sweet elixir has 

 tempted the palate of mankind. There 

 is uo substitute for it; the analysis of 

 the chemist is unable to produce it; 

 man cannot make it, or grow it, or 

 rectify it, and till Millenium's dawn, 

 it will be nectar to men and gods. 



Yours is no insignificant industry. 

 You represent 3,000,000 colonies of 

 bees, with an annual product of sur- 

 plus honey of 100,000,000 pounds. Un- 

 der the impulse of this and kindred 

 associations the product is increasing 

 annually. The cheap sugar of to-day 

 has no perceptible influence upon the 

 demand or the price of the commodity. 

 As the country increases in wealth and 

 luxury, the demand grows with its 

 growth, and increases with the means 

 to gratify the appetite. The best 

 minds in the field of science have con- 

 tributed to the more successful promo- 

 tion of the industry. Aristotle, Virgil, 

 Columella, Pliny, Swanimerdam, Ray, 

 Latreille, and a host of others, ancient 

 and modern — not to forget Langstroth, 

 Cook, Quiuby, Hoot, and otiiers of our 

 day — have studied, observed, experi- 

 mented and written about bees and 

 their habits, till we know how best to 

 rear tiiem,andhow best to utilize their 

 harvest of sweetness ; so that to use 

 the words of a learned judge of one 

 of our Courts, who said, "In modern 

 days the bee has become almost as 

 completely domesticated as tlie ox or 

 the cow. Its habits and its instincts 

 have been studied, so that it can be 

 controlled with nearly as much cer- 

 tainty as any of the domestic ani- 

 mals." 



You have almost taken it out of the 

 class /ercE naiurce. The propensity to 

 mischief has been so diminished, that 

 ■serious injury is almost as rare from a 

 ibee as from the horse, and far less 

 (than from the dog. The Courts take 

 ikindly to the bee. They look with fa- 

 vor upon animals or Insects that are 

 <useful to man; with disfavor upon 

 such as are purely noxious or useless. 

 There is no question of the utility of 

 bees. I note this fact, as I observe a 

 little apprehension among apiarists, 

 about the attitude of Courts occasion- 

 ally, and tiie fear that there may grow 

 up some legal limitation or liability 

 that shall destroy your industry. Bees 



were here befoi-e Courts or juries, and 

 they have the right of way, and will 

 keep it so long as their product is de- 

 sirable. The recent case that has 

 caused some apprehension will be 

 found, I hope, to be based upon an utter 

 misconception of the bee and its habits. 

 It will be found, I have no doubt, tliat 

 a sound grape is absolutely armor- 

 proof to the attack of the bee. It is 

 only when the armor is broken that 

 tlie attack is made. A grape with a 

 broken sliell is practically valueless — 

 worthless, except for the wine-press; 

 and for the one, I frankly say, gentle- 

 men, that as between the wine-press 

 and the bee — as between alcohol and 

 honey — I, am for the bee and for the 

 honey, and I believe the Courts will 

 give the bee the case. 



But, gentlemen, I am not here to 

 keep you from your deliberations. I 

 again welcome you to Michigan, and 

 trust that your stay with us shall be so 

 pleasant that your recollections of it 

 shall be a life-long joy. 



President Root said that he strongly 

 advocated the location of this meeting 

 at Detroit, and he was fully satisfied 

 that there was wisdom in the choice. 

 He had always been inuch interested 

 in Michigan beekeepers and was very 

 glad to meet with so many of them 

 here. The matter of defence of our 

 rights as beekeepers had been men- 

 tioned by President Willetts and he 

 was much in favor of unitedly 

 defending our rights. As Mr. T. G. 

 Newman was general manager of the 

 Beekeepers' Union, an organization 

 created for this purpose, he would call 

 upon Mr. Newman to make a statement 

 concerning what had been done and 

 what was expected to be done in the 

 future by the organization of which he 

 was manager. 



Mr. T. G. Newman then delivered an 

 address on the National Beekeepers' 

 Union, from which we have taken the 

 following notes : 



Last June, Mr. S. I. Freeborn, an 

 extensive apiarist of Wisconsin, was 

 sued by a neighbor, who kept a flock 

 of sheep, for alleged annoyance to his 

 sheep by trespassing bees. 



It was understood that this was to 

 be a "test case," and if the plaintiff 

 succeeded in obtaining a vei'dict iu 

 his favor, either by the ignorance or 

 prejudice of a jury, other beekeepers 

 woiild be likely to be sued to recover 

 damages done to pastures, vineyards 

 and gardens by bees ; and anyone own- 

 ing a few square rods of land, devoted 

 to almost any purpose, may try to 



