THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



149 



For tbe American Beo Journal. 



Priority of Location. 



J. E. POND, JR. 



What a delightful thing would it be 

 to some poor I'ellow, who owns a few 

 square rods of hand, if he could only 

 have the right of priority, to all the 

 honey secreted on the thousands of 

 acres' surrounding him. Wliat a most 

 delicious monopoly would be at once 

 created. All that needs to be done, if 

 I " catch on " to the idea, of at least 

 one apicultural writer to give such an 

 one a moral right at least to control 

 all the honey flora within bee range of 

 his apiary, is simply to be the first one 

 in a given locality to own a colony of 

 bees. 



To be sure some one else might ob- 

 ject, but no matter for that, he is the 

 first comer, and the honev yield is his 

 by virtue of priority. When he has 

 procured one hive, and by the exercise 

 of good judgment has selected a rich 

 location, and found that the business 

 will pay a satisfactory profit, the law 

 " of advantage in speciality " imbues 

 his mind with a desire at once to en- 

 large his apiary till he has completely 

 covered his diminutive tract of land 

 with hives, as thickly as it is safe to 

 stand them. As the season rolls on 

 and he finds each colony giving large 

 returns, he views his spoils by a large 

 degree of self-complacency, and says 

 to himself, " I've got a perfect bonan- 

 za." Ere long his neighbor, who owns 

 the adjacent territory, ascertains that 

 there is money to be made in keeping 

 bees, and procures a few colonies him- 

 self, thinking in the innocence of his 

 heart, that as the flowers are his, he 

 has at least the right to gather a por- 

 tion of the nectar from them ; but he 

 is rudely awakened to the fact that he 

 has no such right (morally at least), 

 because no one has the riglit by rea- 

 son of priority to all the honey yielded 

 within an area of five or six miles 

 from the apiary he has established. 

 2^0. 1 comes over to see No. 2 and 

 says to him, " My dear sir, why do 

 you keep bees and tlius spoil my 

 chance of getting rich in the busi- 

 ness V Last season I got 200 pounds 

 of honey per colony; this season I 

 shall not average 100 pounds, and all 

 because you are poaching on my 

 manor." 



But, says No. 2, " I own all the sur- 

 rounding territory, and you own 

 scarcely land enough on which to set 

 your hives, why have I not a right to 

 gather nectar from my own flowers V" 



" Why, mv dear sir." says No. 1, 

 " don't you" know that my right of 

 priority (morally at least) prevents 

 you from having any rights to the 

 honey, that I am bound to respect V" 

 And so the conversation goes on, but 

 whether No. 2 is fully satisfied or not 

 remains to be seen. 



Is there any sense in a discussion of 

 this kind, an'd will the persons who | 



advocate any such doctrine (if any 

 such there iire) honestly claim that 

 any right of iiriority sucli as indicated 

 above," in reality exists. 



I am surprised at times to see the 

 amount of scllishness that is shown 

 by some of our able writers, when the 

 ((uestion of honey yields is under con- 

 sideration, and thiiik of tlie difference 

 in this regard lliat exists between our 

 bee-keepers and those across tlie 

 water. Here the idea seems solely to 

 work for self, and to prevent every 

 one else from engaging in the busi- 

 ness ; there societies are being formed 

 whose sole object is to teach the best 

 methods to tlie poorer classes, in or- 

 der tliat tliev may have to add a 

 small revenue from their bees to the 

 stipend they receive for their daily 

 labor. Here the attempt is being 

 made to discourage making bee-cul- 

 ture an auxiliary to other pursuits ; 

 tliere the attempt is being made to 

 urge every one who possiljly can, t 

 occupy his leisure moments wit 

 labor in his own apiary. 



One day we hear the cry of "over- 

 stocking," and the claim made tliat 

 ere long bees will be so thick that 

 they will starve unless sugar syrup is 

 supplied them for food. The next 

 day, farmers and professional men are 

 "pitched into" with great severity, 

 and they are accused of taking the 

 bread out of the poor specialist's 



mouth. Then the agricultural col- 

 leges are " hauled over the coals " for 

 adding bee-culture to their curriculum, 

 and advertisements for students are 

 issued in the same paper by bee- keep- 

 ing specialists. 



Do these college students and pro- 

 fessional men injure apiculture as a 

 science or not V Who, I ask, have 

 been the leaders in apicultural im- 

 provements V Has it been the spec- 

 ialists whose time is wholly devoted 

 to caring for tlieir crops of honey or 

 the rearing of queens, or has it been 

 the professional men, who have had 

 the time and the desire to experiment 

 in order to determine the value of this 

 or that point, or the best ways and 

 means of procuring comb or extracted 

 honey ? Who was it that invented 

 and introduced the movable frame? 

 Mr. Quiiiby, one of the ablest and 

 most pi-actical bee-keepers of the age, 

 might have dune this liad he tlie time 

 to devote to it, but he did not, and tlie 

 Rev. L. L. Langstroth, one of these 

 same professional men, did have the 

 time and tlie inclination, and he did it. 

 Who discovered and taught us the 

 theory of parttienogenesis V Dzierzon, 

 another professional man. And so I 

 might go on, l)ut tlie above examples 

 are sutRcient for the point I wisli to 

 present. I trust then, in the future, 

 if selfishness does exist among our 

 apiarists, that (if they must exercise 

 it) they will do so in some less harm- 

 ful manner than in attempting to 

 drive those away from our ranks who 

 really desire to enter them. 

 Foxboro, Mass. 



1^" The Lorain County Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association, will meet at Elyria, 

 O., Wednesday, April 9, 1881. 



O J. Terrell, Sec. 



North Ridgeville, O. 



VoT tTio Atnerlcnn Boe JoumaL 



statistics of the Honey Crop. 



WJI. MUTH-UASMirSSEN. 



ITuder the above heading Dr. C. C. 

 ililler asks for suggestions on the best 

 plan for collecting the statistics. I 

 will give the plan, which, to my mind, 

 seem's the only feasible one. It should 

 be done through county associations. 

 In the first place the committee on 

 statistics should get printed a number 

 of postal card blanks, giving the ques- 

 tions desirc'I to be answered, and also 

 a like number of cards, reading about 

 as follows : 



(Date.) 



Dear Sir : 



You are hereby requested to call a 

 special meeting of your county bee- 

 keepers' association on or about the 



day of if no regular meeting 



occurs at or shortly previous to that 

 date, for the purpose of collecting 

 statistics for the North American 

 Bee-Keepers' Society, as indicated in 

 the accompanying blank, obtaining 

 from the members present as much as 

 possible information about those not 

 present, and about other bee-keepers 

 in your county, who are not members 

 of your association, also estimating 

 as near as you can such items as you 

 cannot learn definitely ; and to for- 

 ward said blank, properly filled out, 

 to the Vice-President of your State, 

 as soon as possible. 



If there is no bee-keepers' associa- 

 tion in your county, you are respect- 

 fully requested to collect as full as 

 possible statistics with which to fill 

 out the blank, or, if unable to do so 

 personally, to hand these papers to 

 some other bee-keeper in your county, 

 who may be willing to aid the com- 

 mittee in this important work. 



The State reports are desired to be 

 in the hands of the committee by the 

 . . . .of. ... 

 Committee on statistics, N. A. B. K. S. 



Chairman. 



Vice-President for 



As manv blanks and cards as there 

 are counties in each State or Territory 

 should be forwarded to the respective 

 vice-presidents, also a corresponding 

 number of stamped envelopes, and one 

 stamped and printed envelope, bear- 

 ing the name and address of the 

 chairman of the committee. 



As soon as this outfit is received, 

 the vice-president should forward a 

 blank postal card, addressed to him- 

 self, and one of the accompanying 

 cards tilled out, signed and addressed 

 in the proper places, both enclosed in 

 one of the stamped envelopes to each 

 secretary, and to any other bee-keeper 

 designed for the work. 



On return of the postal cards the 

 vice-president will make out a State 

 report and send it, in the printed en- 

 velope, to the chairman of the com- 

 mittee, keeping the county reports 

 filed away for future reference. In 

 eacli county where there is no associa- 

 tion, the vice-president can probably 

 find some enterprising bee-keeper who 

 will take interest enough in the mat- 

 ter to collect tolerably accurate sta- 

 tistics ; at any rate the number of 



