158 FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 



You can steal bees but you can't go over to the other man's 

 farm and steal prairie chickens. Of course you can commit 

 trespass. But when you steal a colony of bees don't you be- 

 lieve they are fercz naturae and that you can get out of it. 

 You will go to the penitentiary, probably. He can sell the 

 prairie chickens after he shoots them. 



Mr. Smith — He can't sell them after he shoots them. 



Mr. Kimmey — There is another fellow that has been 

 caught. [Laughter.] If you obey the law you can shoot 

 them. There is a certain time of the year. Do we want to 

 say we are going to own property that is valuable to us, out 

 of which we make our living, and that it is not assessable? 

 If there is any such idea as that let us be honest and fair and 

 drop it. If they are not assessable I think they should be 

 made so. I rather insist upon Mr. Moore making a state- 

 ment because he came to my house and we had a peculiar 

 experience down there. Mr. Moore came to me from visiting 

 an educated gentleman, a man that knows all about the 

 anatomy of the bee and foul brood, and that sort of thing, 

 and Mr. Moore told me that this gentleman had one case 

 of foul brood. I had never seen any and I wanted to see, 

 and feel, and smell it. I went up there and I told the gentle- 

 man that I wanted to see the colony of bees that Mr. Moore 

 said had foul brood. He says, "You can't see any foul brood 

 here." He also said he had once been cleaned out entirely 

 by foul brood. I was ready to believe there was something 

 there. I know he bought some bees of another neighbor who 

 had foul brood. I had some of the same bees ; in fact, the 

 only ones I had to commence with came from there. I was 

 interested in it. He " said he had a small nucleus that was 

 doing fairly well and in the meantime had a hive full of comb, 

 no bees, and he wanted those bees to take care of that comb, 

 and so set the hive with the comb on top of the nucleus. Con- 

 sequently the queen and some of the bees moved out, and then 

 came the cold weather last spring and the brood in the lower 

 hive died. I was ready to believe that story. He also said 

 that Mr. Moore said he was not an expert. I suppose Mr. 

 Moore said the same things to him that he said this morning. 

 I took it for granted there was no foul brood, and didn't in- 

 sist upon an examination. It seemed to me, then, and it 

 seems to me now — I want to be frank and fair about it — Mr. 

 Moore either ought to know what foul brood is, without go- 

 ing two years to the agricultural college, or else Mr. Moore 

 ought to stop inspecting. I believe after hearing him talk 

 here this morning that the bees of the gentleman I referred 

 to had foul brood, and that Mr. Moore knew it. I think 

 he wants to shake off some of his modesty and say he knows 

 foul brood when he sees it. I want to mention another thing 

 this gentleman told me. He said, "Notwithstanding I believe 

 there is no foul brood I am going to burn that thing up, hive 

 and everything," which he did that night; and I believe that 

 is the proper spirit that any one should show even though 

 one may have a doubt in regard to it. A hive of bees of 

 course is not of much consequence, but if he finds it in one, 



