BEES AS A NUISANCE 287 



It therefore follows that courts still deal with nuisances largely from 

 the principles of the common law and it is a matter of serious doubt 

 whether, in any instance, specific legislative action can be proven to have 

 any substantial value as an addition to the law of the subject. A nuisance 

 at common law is that class of wrongs that arise from unreasomable, un- 

 warrantable, or unlawful use by a person of his own property, real or 

 personal, or from his own improper, indecent or unlawful personal conduct 

 working an obstruction of or injury to a right of another, or of the public, 

 and producing such material annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort, or hurt 

 that the law will presume a consequent damage. 



Text writers and legislative enactments state many variations of the 

 foregoing comprehensive definition from Mr. Wood's treatise on nuisances, 

 but there is no substantial disagreement as to what constitutes a nuisance. 

 Another definition stated broadly as a general proposition, is that every 

 enjoyment by one of his own property which violates in an essential degree 

 the rights of another is a nuisance; and this substantial violation of a 

 right is the true test of a nuisance, for it is not every use of his property 

 by one which works injury to the property of another that constitutes 

 a nuisance. Injury and damage are essential elements of a nuisance, but 

 they may both exist as a result of an act or thing which is not a nuisance, 

 because no right is violated. On the other hand, the pecuniary injury may 

 be insignificant and the act or thing causing them be such an invasion 

 of the rights of another, or of the public, as to constitute a nuisance for 

 which an action for damages or for abatement will lie. 



Nuisances are classified by the law as public and private, and there is 

 authority for a third class called " mixed " nuisances. A nuisance is 

 public wliere it afi"ects the rights of individuals as a part of the public, 

 or the common rights of all the community alike; a private nuisance is 

 one aff"ecting a single individual, or individuals of a particular class, group, 

 or locality in a private right; the third class, referred to as mixed nui- 

 sances, are public in their nature, but at the same time specially injurious 

 or detrimental to one or more individuals in particular who suffer a different 

 or greater hurt tlian the community in general. 



Nuisances are further divided into nuisances per se, or such as are 

 declared so by tlie common law or by some statute, without regard to 

 locality, surroundings, or circumstances, and nuisances per accidens, or 

 those owing their hurtful consequences to some particular attendant cir- 

 cumstances, surrounding, location, or condition, without Avhich they would 

 not be unlawful. There are other less important and rather technical 

 distinctions not necessary to be noticed here. The foregoing preliminary 

 and very elementary observations of the general law of nuisances are neces- 

 sary to a consideration of any subject with reference to its existence as 

 a nuisance or otherwise. 



It is also a frequent statement of the law, and may be accepted as 

 authoritative, that no lawful occupation or business is a nuisance per se, 

 except it be declared so by some special enactment prohibiting certain 

 things as objectionable to particular localities. S'o also the reasonable- 

 ness of the use of one's property may depend upon its situation, for what 

 might be lawful in one locality would prove intolerable in another. The 

 use of a building in the midst of a city densely populated for a storage 

 house for hardware would not be objectionable in the slightest degree, while 



