392 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



" We have seen honey so thin that 

 to reverse the combs would be sure to 

 give the bees a job of house-clenuiiig." 

 The writer now touches liglitly upon 

 a matter of some importance— but is 

 he sure that he has made a statement 

 of fact f or is it simply fancy ? We 

 have a " strain " of bees in Illinois 

 (and they are not liybrids either) that 

 has a knack of filling a comb with 

 honey when it lies upon its face, and 

 making it stay in, too ! But suppose 

 honey is so thin that it will run out 

 when the comb is simply reversed, 

 will that do any harm ? And may it 

 not after all be an advantage V That 

 is, may it not hasten the " ripening" 

 of the honey, if the bees are com- 

 pelled to move it to some other part 

 of the hive V Bytbe-by, what is the 

 reason those wonderful hybrid bees in 

 Michigan cannot be strained just a 

 trifle more, so that they will not 

 gather honey so thin that it will run 

 out by simply reversing the combs V 



" I can see no advantage" in re- 

 versible frames, but this may be ow- 

 ing to my " thick-headedness." The 

 writer has possibly " hit the nail on 

 the head " this time I But great men 

 are often troubled with that com- 

 plaint. Even the late T. B. Miner, 

 the compiler of " The Bee-Keepers' 

 Manual," a work that had quite an 

 extensive sale 25 years ago, was sadly 

 afflicted with " thick-headedness ;" so 

 much so, in fact, that he could not see 

 that movable-frame hives had any ad- 

 vantage over those provided simply 

 with top-bars ! 



The same is true to-day with many 

 concerning the use of a honey- board 

 when made properly. How few there 

 are, comparatively, who fully appre- 

 ciate the advantages of the "style of 

 honey-board so ably advocated by 

 Mr. Heddon. So the writer will 

 please console himself with the 

 thought that other great men are 

 often so "thick-headed" that they 

 cannot always comprehend important 

 discoveries. 



St. Charles, 111. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Priority of Location. 



E. J. KENDALL. 



Mr. Doolittle and Mr. Pond botli 

 attack this subject in the Bee Jour- 

 nal for May U. If I understand Mr. 

 Heddon, he says just this: The man 

 who begins to keep bees first in a 

 locality, has priority of location — as a 

 moral right. He then gives such bee- 

 keepers a plan whereby they can 

 maintain their right, if an intruder 

 will not listen to reason. 



That the first settler has a moral 

 right of priority of location, seems to 

 me undoubted. The legal right is 

 another thing. Mr. Doolittle does not 

 appear to dispute the moral right; 

 but Mr. Pond attempts to turn the 

 issue by saying one man has as much 

 right to enter another man's locality 

 as he has to set up a store beside him". 

 Legal right, yes ; moral riglit, no. 

 The cases are not exactly alike — com- 

 munities increase in population, 

 localities do not in honey-flowers. 



As a lawyer, I am not a little sur- 

 prised at Mr. Pond's taking up the 

 position he does ; for law in its princi- 

 ple goes dead against him. The whole 

 tenor of the writings of Blackstone, 

 Coke, Justinian, and the American 

 law writers, when treating of the 

 principles of tenures and titles, go to 

 aftirm that the first occupant has a 

 right to the selected locality. Dis- 

 covery and first occupancy are the 

 very foundation of title. The princi- 

 ple is so plainly recognized by the 

 American law of pre-emption.and also 

 by the free ranges over the public 

 domain in the West by cattle and 

 sheep men that I wonder all the more 

 at his position. 



So far as the point at issue in this 

 matter of location is concerned, there 

 is no difference between cattle and 

 sheep and bees ; or if tliere is, it is in 

 favor of the bees — " they come home 

 to roost." 



Equity most certainly, if not actual 

 law. would give the title to the first 

 bee-keeper. Try it also by the rule of 

 doing inito others as you would have 

 others do to you, and see where this- 

 puts it. 



Mr. Doolittle's contention appears 

 to be thus : If Jones is a big prop- 

 erty-ow^ner near Kendall, who is a 

 poor man keeping bees, that the big 

 property-owner Jones can crowd Ken- 

 dall out of the range by simply put- 

 ting on his large range more colonies 

 of bees than Kendall does on his. 



Perhaps he can, and perhaps he 

 cannot ; and perhaps he will get so 

 disgusted in doing it that he will 

 eventually want to sell out to Kendall. 

 I3ear in mind these suppositions : 

 Kendall is supposed to be an experi- 

 enced bee-man, and up with the 

 times; while .lones is not a bee-man 

 at all. l)ut seeing Kendall's success, 

 wants to keep bees, and undertakes to 

 crowd Kendall out. Kendall is sup- 

 posed to have talked with Jones, rep- 

 resented to him that he (Kendall) has 

 been in the business some time — it is 

 his livelihood. To Jones it would be 

 a mere adjunct, but both will be in- 

 jured if Jones carries out his project. 

 .Jones, however, says he does not 

 care. The surrounding property is 

 his, and the honey his also ; he pro- 

 poses to keep bees and collect it in 

 self-defense. Kendall puts in more 

 and more colonies. The average runs 

 down in all the colonies, but knowing 

 his business, Kendall keeps up the 

 " racket '' till he has his apiary as full 

 as he can manage — there is a big lot 

 of colonies, but the average is low, 

 very low. Kendall knows just what 

 he is doing; Jones does not. He has 

 to buy hives, gets left more or less in 

 doing so, and has to get bees. He 

 gets stung, and mad, his swarms fly 

 away, he loses or hurts his queens, 

 gets the bees in ■' a deal of a temper " 

 by his clumsy and awkward manipu- 

 lations, and at their best, with scien- 

 tific skilled treatment, they could only 

 have secured Kendall's low average. 

 But with Jones', ignorance, nervous- 

 ness, and clumsyness, they have failed 

 to get even that. 



Do you not fancy, by the time he is 

 through, Jones will be a pretty badly 

 disgusted man, and feel like selling 



out ? Besides, while he is messing 

 with the three, four or five hundred 

 colonies with which he is going to 

 beat Jones out, what will become of 

 his farm or other business. It will 

 take him all his time to handle his 

 bees. Then again, how many years 

 will it take him to build up his apiary; 

 and how many years will he have to 

 neglect his farm or other business. 

 Is it likely he will neglect a better 

 business for a poorer jto him) one":* 

 Scarcely ; his only other way then 

 would be to hire an experienced api- 

 arist to manage his bees ; and he 

 would have to pay such a man a 

 salary that would. "I think, in addi- 

 tion to the cost of hives, bees, etc., 

 amount to such a sum as would make 

 Mr. Jones a pretty sick man on bees ; 

 and begin to think the game of driv- 

 ing out Kendall was not worth the 

 candle burned to play it by. 



No, no, Mr. Heddon has given us a 

 valuable liint if we have to fight such 

 a case — a hint that will enable an ex- 

 perienced bee-keeper with a small 

 acreage, to win, over an experienced 

 but envious landed-proprietor every 

 time, I believe. 



Mr. Doolittle's plan is to speak soft 

 words to the big man ; Mr. Heddon 

 distinctly said the same. It the big 

 man listens to the kindly words, all 

 will be well in Mr. Heddon's case as 

 w-ell as in Mr. Doolittle's. But in 

 case the big man says, " I don't care," 

 and will not listen to reason — what 

 then V (And this is the case Mr. 

 Heddon supposes.) I presume Mr. 

 Doolittle would move out or agree to 

 work the big man's apiary on a salary; 

 but Mr. Heddon would do neither, 

 unless he was compelled to— an un- 

 likely contingency — he would stop and 

 fight it ; and if there is any truth in 

 the statement that " knowledge is 

 power," the chances are, Mr. Heddon 

 would come out ahead, and his big 

 opponent would be the under dog in 

 the fight. 



Every reasonable man believes that 

 quiet "arbitrature is best ; but the 

 trouble is, every once in a while a big 

 fellow comes along who will not listen 

 to reason, but presumes on his size, 

 and purposes to despoil you. In such 

 a ease you must do one of two things 

 —give up or make a fight- for it. If 

 there is no chance of winning, and 

 you cannot win, you have to suffer 

 loss; but if you can see a chance to 

 win, fight it ; and I fancy it may be 

 shown that your science, experience 

 and knowledge will be more than a 

 match for size and presumption. No, 

 Mr. Doolittle's landed-proprietor 

 would not be the " smarter" man, but 

 the "'smarting" one. 



Austin, Texas. 



(^ The Iowa Central Bee-Keepers' 

 Association will hold their next meet- 

 ing on June 20, at Winterset, Iowa. 

 A full attendance is expected. 



J. E. Pryor, Sec. 



A. J. Adkinson, Pres. 



^ TheKentuckyBee-Keepers'Con- 

 vention meets in Louisville, Ky., dur- 

 ing the opening of the Exposition (day 

 not fixed). N. P. Allen, Sec. 



