Here's a few weapons-grade legal precedents that one might
find useful for vaporizing any municipal ordinance restricting
beekeeping in the USA.

[Insert usual advisory here - Talk to an attorney, blah, blahblah ]

It is also a classic example of the sort of dynamic serendipity
that happens all the time here at Farmageddon, and makes us
wonder if our land adjoins the Twilight Zone.

One day, a friend (who earns a living as a federal prosecutor)
was waiting for me to get off the phone, and wandered into
our library to glance at a few books.

Several days later, at dinner, each person around the table
was asked to tell of the strangest thing seen or heard that
day (a game we often play to avoid bogging down on
boring subjects like work, politics, and the ongoing drought
of biblical proportions).

I told the tale of the psychotic town who presumed to force
prospective beekeepers to "apply" for "permission" to keep
bees in the town, and pay a hefty fee for the dubious privilege
of having them decide if they would allow bees to exist in their city.

After the gardeners around the table finished their predictable
hyperventilation and choking spells, the same friend said
that she had read of two different appeals cases where such
ordinances were overturned, and that she had read this in
one of my "bee books".

She dropped by again tonight, and I asked her to point out
which book she had glanced through.  She pointed to the
gold lettering on the spine of a 1920 edition of "The ABC
and XYZ Of Bee Culture".

Sure enough, the stitching of the binding makes the book
tend to fall open to page 497, "Laws Relating To Bees".

The context in which these cases are mentioned in the book
is as follows:

======= Quoting from ABC & XYZ 1920 ================

BEES NOT A NUISANCE

The liability of a beekeeper... rests on the doctrine of negligence,
and not on the doctrine or theory the bees are a nuisance per se;
that is, in themselves a nuisance.  In the case of Petey Manufacturing Co.
vs. Dryson (Del.) 5 Pen 166; 62 Atl. 1056, the court used the following
language:

"The keeping of bees is recognized as proper and beneficial, and it
seems to us that the liability of the owner as keeper thereof for any
injury done by them to the person or property of another rests on
the doctrine of negligence."  Also see Cooley on Torts, 349...

ARKADELPHIA VS. CLARK

Arkadelphia vs. Clark, 52 Ark. 23; 11 S.W. 957, is a case in point.
This particular case was decided in 1889...

...The decision as handed down by the Supreme Court was that:

"Neither the keeping, owning, or raising of bees is, in itself, a
nuisance.  Bees may become a nuisance in a city, but whether
they are so or not is a question to be judicially determined in
each case.  The ordinance under consideration undertakes to
make each of the acts named a nuisance without regard to the
fact whether it is or not, whether the bees in general have become
a nuisance in the city.  It is therefore too broad and is invalid".

Another instance where a city tried to prohibit beekeeping within
the city occurred in 1901, when the city of Rochester, NY
enacted an ordinance similar to the one enacted by the city of
Arkadelphia.  W. R. Taunton, a member of the National Beekeepers'
Association...

...The defense was that the ordinance was unconstitutional and void,
and it was so held by the court, and the defendant was discharged."

======= End Quoting from ABC & XYZ 1920 ================

The book did not give a citation for the "Taunton" case, and it mentions
"police court", meaning a local municipal court. Good luck finding
a published opinion for this one.

My prosecutor friend offered the opinion that older rulings, if
not since overturned, carry more "weight" than modern rulings
simply due to their "ivy covered" status.  Given a choice, she
would rather cite the Magna Carta than a 1982 ruling of the 4th Circuit.

Nota bene:

      While I was typing the above, two windows popped open on
      my workstation to show me "relevant data" to what I was typing.
      (Amazing what our stable of grad students on work-study do in
       their "spare time" these days...)

      These are additional quotes from the same book, which I will
      not bother to type again:

     http://www.beesource.com/eob/laws/rootlaw.htm

     http://www.beesource.com/eob/laws/court.htm


                        jim