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ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION 



137 



ning out of the grapes and my bees were 

 around there. He said I must remove 

 my bees; they were destroying his 

 grapes, puncturing them and taking the 

 juice. I said, "I think you are mistaken. 

 Bees can not possibly do that. Their 

 jaws are not so constructed that they 

 can cut the skin of a grape." He said, 

 "They are doing it." I said, "Have you 

 seen an individual bee do anything of 

 that kind?" "Why," he said, "there are 

 hundreds of them doing it all through 

 my vineyard. You have got to take 

 them away." I said, "If you can demon- 

 strate that they are actually injuring 

 your grapes, it will be right for me to 

 take them away, but unless you can es- 

 tablish that fact I will not take my bees 

 away. I have got the affidavit of Mr. 

 Quinby." I sent all the way to New 

 York for it. "I will get Mr. Langstroth 

 and have him testify in court that not 

 a man of you knows what you are talk- 

 ing about; that it is utterly impossible 

 for a bee to puncture the skin of a 

 grape." Then he consulted an attorney, 

 who called on me in my office, and 1 

 showed him the bee through a micro- 

 scope that magnified about loo diamet- 

 ers. I said, "Look at it, and if you 

 think it will puncture a grape I will 

 remove my bees." He was a reasonable 

 man. You will find some reasonable 

 men who are attorneys! He said, 

 "Bohrer's statement is true. Your 

 grapes are bursting or being punctured 

 from some other cause. The bees are 

 carrying off the juice." And the mat- 

 ter dropped. 



Mr. Wheeler — The drift of the con- 

 vention sounds to me as if we were not 

 members of the National any longer. 

 Is that the fact? 



Pres. York — We are members of the 

 National because we joined in a body, 

 and if we get into trouble we can call 

 on the National to help us out. 



Mr. Moore — Mr. France, in this con- 

 nection, will you say how much the Na- 

 tional Association has spent ? 



Mr. France — In the ordinance line 

 from $200 to $300, one year $400. As 

 a rule, with these ordinance difficulties 

 the bees are not at the bottom of the 

 trouble, but that the neighbors to the 

 bees get in trouble, and complaints and 

 grievances arise, and finally the bees are 

 complained about and an ordinance 

 passed declaring them a nuisance and 

 ordering their removal. That is about 



the way those things are led up to. 

 There are many cities in the United 

 States enforcing such an ordinance, and 

 you can not keep bees in those cities, 

 but we haven't it here. As I say, most 

 of these things come from some per- 

 sonal grievance. I recall where two 

 neighbors got to quarreling in that way. 

 The bee-keeper killed the neighbor's 

 chickens, and then he turned around and 

 killed the bee-keeper's cat, and it was 

 back and forth, and a swarm of bees 

 came out and clustered on the neighbor's 

 land on a shade tree, and before they 

 had time to get them out this neighbor 

 took a torch and burned them on the 

 tree. After a while they asked the city 

 to declare those bees a nuisance. 



Mr. Wilcox — There is one thing we 

 all ought to understand — ^perhaps we do 

 — the National Association was not 

 originally intended to defend everybody 

 that was threatened. It was intended 

 only to protect those where it should 

 involve something of general interest to 

 all bee-keepers or to the bee-keeping 

 industry, as in the case of Mr. Freeborn, 

 the first case that ever arose, where the 

 question was as to whether the clover 

 was damaged by having the nectar ex- 

 tracted by the bees. That is a ques- 

 tion that affects the industry generally. 

 I have had complaints made that buck- 

 wheat was injured in its yielding by the 

 bees depriving it of its nectar. If a 

 lawsuit were brought to collect damages 

 for nectar taken from buckwheat you 

 can see at once that almost every bee- 

 keep in the United States would 

 be willing to contribute, because they 

 are all interested; but where it is a 

 personal quarrel they ought not. If 

 the National Association goes farther 

 than its rules require, as it may some- 

 times, it will be in a case of that char- 

 acter, where the general welfare of the 

 bee-keepers demands it, not where it is 

 was a personal quarrel. 



On motion, an adjournment was tak- 

 en until 7 p. rh. 



First Day — Evening Session. 



For about a half hour before the 

 opening of the session a quartette com- 

 posed of Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe M. 

 Stryker, Miss Ruby W. Stryker and 

 Pres. York, accompanied on the piano 

 by Miss Kathryn Kletzing, entertained 

 the audience with bee-songs. Dr. Miller 

 sang also. 



