Ultimately all this talk about pesticides harming bees is about affixing blame for bee mortality. It is instructive to revisit the case where beekeepers sued NY state for damages due to aerial spraying. The judge concluded:

Claimants' case was solely speculation based on opinion unfortified by fact. It rested essentially, if not wholly, on the ancient fallacy post hoc propter hoc — that the losses followed the spraying and therefore must have been caused by it, since there is no other explanation. However, there are still some things that even modern science has not yet discovered about bees and their diseases. It is even possible that a combination of different known conditions, such as robbing, starving, nosema, septicemia, etc., in different yards, could have accounted for the losses. 

At any rate, the fact that the spraying preceded the losses does not prove that it caused them. Chronology is not causation. Moreover, though it may not be possible to discover and divine just what happened or why (no scientist was on the scene and making observation soon enough), it is possible to exclude a particular cause and prove what didn't happen and we submit defendant did so, although it didn't have that burden. On the issue of proximate cause, therefore, not only is the decision amply supported by the evidence, but a contrary decision would clearly have been against its weight.     

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW. 

I. The burden of proof of the entitled claims is upon the claimants 

II. The named claimants, and each of them, have failed to establish the proximate cause of the death and damage to their honeybees and/or bee colonies, for which they have asked an award for damages; and they have further failed to show any negligence on the part of the State which caused or contributed thereto. 

The State objected to the receipt of evidence on the anticipated amount of honey to be produced. While, under the Decision herein, it is unnecessary to pass on this question, nevertheless, the Court is of the opinion that such evidence as to amount of honey which the bees would produce and the value thereof, was improperly admitted be cause such evidence was entirely too speculative. 

Honey production depends on many things, including weather, crops, care and the length of the hazardous life of the bee, which is limited in any event. This is not the proper measure of damage. The measure of damage was the value of the damage to the bee colonies, plus damage to honey, wax or other food in existence at the time, and used or destroyed as a result of negligence found to be a proximate cause. 

The proof herein is based on circumstantial evidence. While it is a well established rule of law that circumstantial evidence may support a judgment, it is required that inferences of negligence and proximate cause may be the only ones which can fairly and reasonably be deduced from the facts. 

Circumstantial evidence consists in reasoning from facts which are known or proved, to establish such as are conjectured to exist; but the process is fatally vicious if the circumstances from which we seek to deduce the conclusions depends upon conjecture itself.  

Where the facts proven show that there are several possible causes of an injury, for one or more of which the defendant was not responsible, and it is just as reasonable and probable that the injury was a result of one cause or the other, claimants cannot have a recovery since they have failed to prove that the negligence of the defendant caused the injury. 

The burden of proof is upon the claimants. They have failed in this burden as further set forth in the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law as marked, made and filed herewith. 

The claims are dismissed. 

Dated : December 28, 1961.  

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