532 



THE SMERICSIf BEE JOWRNSlLr. 



still Anotlier Victory for tlie 

 IVatioiial Bee-Keepers' Unioii I— 



Z. A. Clark's case, who was put into jail at 

 Arkadelphia, Ark., last spring, for ttiain- 

 taining liis apiary in the suburbs of that 

 city, came on and was tried before the Cir- 

 cuit Court in the July term. The case was 

 tried on the "clean-cut" law question, viz : 

 That the "city ordiuanee was illegal and 

 void." The first victory in this case is 

 ■for tlie I'liioii. tlie Circuit Court de- 

 ciding that the city ordinance was illegal 

 a7idl)0id— that tlie keepiiiST of bees 

 was l>0'r A :>! ISAl^tE ! ! 



When the prosecution realized that bee- 

 keepers had an organized body for defend- 

 ing the pursuit agaiust the malicious at- 

 tacks of the ignorant and the prejudiced, 

 it wcaJsened—it tried " to hedge "—was will- 

 ing 10 dismiss all the cases agaiust Mr. 

 Clark on a pretended informality in his 

 bonds ! 



The City of Arkadelphia has decided to 

 appeal the case to the Supreme Court. This 

 is very fortunate, for we want a decision 

 which will count ! One from the highest 

 court is wliat we need to declare tUat bee- 

 keeping is not a inUsdncc ! And it will be 

 done. The Union has paid the retaining 

 fee, and it will be ably defended again by 

 Judge Williams, the most successful attor- 

 ney in Arkansas, who assures the General 

 Managerof the Union that he is ready for 

 the fray. The Supreme Court meets next 

 October. 



Here is what the Little Rock daily 

 Gazette of Aug. 7 remarks about the trial, 

 under these headings: "A Celebrated 

 Case. After a Long Legal Contest, the 

 Little Busy Bee is Set at Liberty at Arka- 

 delphia :" 



The celebrated bee-case, which excited so 

 much interest in Arkadelphia, last summer, 

 was decided yesterday in the Circuit Court, 

 Judge llearu presiding. The case was the 

 City vs. Z. A. Clark, for violating a City 

 ordinance declaring the keeping of bees, 

 within the city limits, a nuisance. Mr. 

 Clark resisted the ordinance upon the 

 grounds of interfering witn a natural right. 

 Judge llearn held that the ordinance was 

 void because it declared the keeping of bees 

 a nuisance per se, which the law does not 

 recognize. Considerable interest is mani- 

 fested in the case, the National Bee Keep- 

 ers' Union, of Chicago, being the backers 

 of Mr. Clark. The city has appealed to the 

 Supreme Court. 



It is not only the privilege of apiarists 

 to belong to such a "Union" for defense— 

 but it is a liigli lionor. Like the Koyal 

 Huzzars of history, the Union has never 

 yet been beaten ! Victory has perched 

 upon its banner in every contest so far un- 

 dertaken in the defense of the rights of its 

 members ! This is, of course, attributable 

 to the care exercised in canvassing the cases 

 before deciding to defend them ; to make 

 sure that they are iught before going ahead 

 with them ! For it not right, it would be 

 better to be beaten than to be victorious. 



Mr. Clark writes us the following state- 

 ment of the case, which will be read with 

 interest : 



Arkadelphia, Ark., Aug. 7, 18S8. 



Fkiend Newman :— 1 received your tele- 

 gram yesterday evening, in answer lo the 

 one I si-nt yon, asking me tn send full par- 

 ticulars. 1 have been feeling so elated, 

 being congratulated by friends .so much — 

 (since the burial of the "nuisance case") 

 that I hardly teel able to write. Everybody 

 in our little City, white and black, are 

 rejoicing but the anli-bee-council and their 

 followers. 



The case came up on Saturday, Aug. 4, 

 when the City Attorney began to show 

 weakness by trying to turn us out of court, 

 on a motion to dismi.'s all the cases against 

 me, on the informality of my bonds, stating 

 that my bond was lOt sufficient, but Judge 

 Hearn overruled Ihe motion. 



When my attorneys. Judges S. W. Will- 

 iams, Witlierspoon, Murray and McMillan 

 made a motion to dismiss the cases against 

 me upon the wiidness of the ordinance. 

 Judge Williams made an able speech in de- 

 fense of beekeepers, in which he showed 

 that he knew something about bees himself, 

 having been an old bee-hunter in the early 

 settlement of Arkansas. After which, the 

 Judge stated to the attorneys that he had 

 lived a long time in Arkadelphia, and that 

 bees had been kept here all the time, and 

 that he had not heard any complaint until 

 this case came up— and that the keeping of 

 bees per se was not a nuisance. He reserved 

 his decision until Monday morning at 9 

 o'clock, when he stated that the case would 

 go to the Supreme Court, no matter in which 

 way it was decided, hut stated he wanted to 

 be found on the liglit side, when decided in 

 the Supreme Court. He then sustained our 

 motion to dismiss the case, and declared 

 the ordinance void. The City Attorney 

 then gave notice of an appeal. Hence we 

 go up higher amid the cry of " victory " and 

 " hallelujahs." 



This shows what brothers can do when 

 banded together, with a captain like 

 Thomas G. Newman, to direct our battles 

 against ignorance and the prejudicial whims 

 of an ignorant populace. Z. A. Clahk. 



Reader, did you ever think of what a 

 power there is in an organized defense ? 

 and what a powerful defense it is, when 

 the members of the pursuit combine and 

 engage the best legal talent which can be 

 had— and plenty of it— and planting their 

 feet squarely upon the constitution of Free- 

 men—in this " Land of the free and Home 

 of the Brave"— they demand the rights 

 guaranteed to every " honest son of toil " 

 by that magna charta of American liberty 

 and independence — the Constitution of 

 the United States ! ! ! 



Races of ICees — Verbena, etc. — 



Ira N. Lyman, St. Peter, Nebr., on July 28, 

 1888, writes : 



I read of so many kinds of bees, and so 

 much difference of opinion as to different 

 markings of bees, that 1 would like to ask a 

 few questions : 



1. Should not thorough-bred Italian bees 

 have three broad, yellow bauds V and are 

 they not lighter colored than the common 

 brown or black bees, as they are called ? 



2. Are not the bees reared in the North- 

 ern States the best to get queens from, to 

 live in the Northern Stales ? Are not 

 Southern bees something like Southern 



cattle, that cannot stand the hard, cold 

 winters of the North as well as Northern- 

 raised cattle ? 



3. I received a queen from New York on 

 June 24. It was introduced into a queen- 

 less colony of hybrid-Italians, that had two 

 nice, broad, yellow bands ; and at this time 

 1 cannot see any change, only I think there 

 are some of the bees with one and two 

 bands, that are darker at the rear than any 

 there were in tlie hive before. It is 34 days 

 since I got the queen ; onght not the young 

 thornugh-breds to be out in full force before 

 this ? 



Bees are doing pretty well now, but we 

 had so much bad weather before and duritig 

 the time they ought to have swarmed, that 

 they were not able to get honey to rear 

 brood, and were very light. Some bees had 

 to be fed to keep them alive at the time they 

 should have been swarming. There is one 

 man here that had 80 colonies in the spring, 

 and has had only 12 swarms. Bees are 

 doing well now. Mine are storing honey in 

 the surplus boxes. 



4. I send a honey-weed to be named. The 

 bees worked on it nearly all summer — 

 longer than on anything else. 



1. Pure Italian bees have three bright, 

 yellow bands, and their bodies are of a 

 light brown color. 



2. Bees carefully reared in the South are 

 usually quite as hardy as those reared in 

 the North. 



3. Yes ; the Italians would now be out in 

 force, if the queen was pure and safely in- 

 troduced. But are you sure the colony was 

 queenless ? If not, the new queen might 

 have been killed, and no change has been 

 made in the race of bees. 



4. The stem and flower sent is that of the 

 verbena, one of the vervains, which, having 

 a dense spike of blue flowers, grows 2 or 3 

 feet high, along the streams and barren 

 waste-places throughout all the Northwest. 

 It is a valuable honey-plant. 



Clover Dodder.— The Rev. L. L. 

 Langstroth, of Dayton, O., on July 30, 18S8, 

 writes thus to Prof. Cook : 



I send you a plant for name. It twines 

 around the red clover and kills it. I send 

 you one clover plant killed, one closely 

 hugged, and the plant in blossom. It seems 

 to be new here, and might become very 

 destructive. Please answer this in the 

 AMEiiiCAN Bee Jotjrnal. 



The following is the reply forwarded by 

 Prof. Cook : 



The plant sent by our friend is the clover 

 dodder, Cuscuta tiifnlU, so named because 

 it encircles ami kills our comiuon clover. 

 The plants resemble wrapping twine, and 

 by coiling around other plants, destroy 

 them. Thus the dodders are really garroters. 

 They seize and sirangle their victims. We 

 have several American dodders. The clover 

 dodder is imported from Europe. The only 

 remedy is to root up like any other weed. 



Hood's Political Points. — A handy 

 little book for the Presidential campaign, 

 is just out. It contains finely engraved 

 portraits and sketches of the candidates for 

 President and Vice-President (Rep., Dem. 

 and Pro.), electoral and popular votes in 

 previous elections, and other useful infor- 

 mation. Copies may be had free at the 

 druggists, or by sending a 2-cent stamp to 

 C. I. Hood & Co., Lowell, Mass. 



