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II. 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 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 imagine 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 rational principles, he should be able, upon reflection, to see that such ideas were entirely groundless. Nevertheless, the complaint is sometimes made, in a more or less vague manner, by persons who ought to know better; and even beekeepers appear occasionally to adopt an apologetic tone, arguing that ‘‘bees do more good than harm,’’ instead of taking the much higher and only true stand by asserting that bees, while conferring great benefits on agriculture, do no harm whatever, and that the presence of an apiary on or close to his land can be nothing but an advantage to the agriculturist.
BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF BEES ON AGRICULTURE.
The value of the intervention of bees in the cross-fertilisation of plantsis dwelt upon in Chapter III, ‘‘Australasian Bee Manual,” third edition,
- This paper, which constituted the nineteenth chapter of the third edition of my ‘‘Australasian Bee Manual,’’ was an attempt, and I have reasons for believing a successful attempt, to clear up several misunderstandings that had arisen in the minds of some farmers who had come to regard the working of neighbours’ bees in their pasturage as detrimental to themselves, and to prove on the contrary that it is really to their interests to encourage beekeeping. Shortly after the paper was first published the subject was brought prominently forward in consequence of the action taken by a farmer in the United States to claim damages from a neighbouring beekeeper for alleged injury done to his grazing sheep by trespassing(?) bees. Needless to say, he lost his case. The paper has been extensively quoted in several American bee journals, and described as a ‘‘unique and valuable addition to bee literature.’’ I trust it may still serve a good purpose in this country, where it first appeared.—I.H.
