BEE MANUAL. 297 



CHAPTER XIX. 



APICULTURE IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE* 



The benefits derived by both agriculturists and horticulturists 

 from the labours of the bee are now very generally understood 

 and acknowledged ; but still cases do sometimes occur, though 

 rarely, of farmers objecting to the vicinity of an apiary, and 

 complaining of bees as " trespassers," instead of welcoming 

 them as benefactors. 



are bees trespassers ? 



It is not, perhaps, surprising that at first a man should ima- 

 gine he was being injured in consequence of bees gathering 

 honey on his land, to be stored up elsewhere, and for the use 

 of other parties ; he might argue that the honey belonged by 

 right to him, and even jump at the conclusion that there was 

 so much of the substance of the soil taken away every year, and 

 that his land must therefore become impoverished. It is true 

 that if he possessed such an amount of knowledge as might be 

 expected to belong to an intelligent agriculturist, working upon 



A paper, from which the matter of this chapter is ahridged, appeared in 

 the three numbers of the New Zealand and Australian Bee Journal for the 

 months of August, September, and October, 1884, and has since been partially- 

 reprinted in more than one of the American bee papers. Since it was first 

 written, the subject of which it treats has been brought prominently forward 

 in consequence of the action taken by a farmer in one of tie United States to 

 claim damages from a neighbouring bee-keeper for supposed injury done to 

 his grazing sheep by trespassing (?) bees. Just now, whilst these sheets are 

 passing through the press, the American Bee Journals are full of communi- 

 cations from bee-keepers, pointing out the absurdity of such claims, and 

 calling for united action in opposing all such attempts that may be made to 

 check the progress of bee culture. However unfounded and unreasonable 

 such claims really are and must appear to those who understand the nature 

 and habits of both bees and grazing animals, the mere fact of their being 

 seriously advanced is sufficient to show the necessity of bee-keepers adducing 

 such f actn and arguments as are calculated to prove satisfactorily the ground- 

 lessness of all assertions to the effect that bees occasion any injury to tie 

 farmer, either as regards the fertility of his soil, the condition of his crops, or 

 the safety and comfort of his grazing stock. [Since the above was in type the 

 lawsuit— Sheep v. Bees— has been dismissed by the Judges.] 



