ellipsis
1st July 2010, 05:47
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So I found myself having to mediate a bee swarm capturing dispute earlier today and some interesting issues were raised during the attempted mediation. Here is the context:
I work at a community farm which grows free produce for distribution in working class/immigrant neighborhoods in San Francisco. The land was home to a church which was destroyed by fire and left untouched for 15 years or something. The church allows the land to be used for the community garden, which is all coordinated by a man by the name of Tree who calls a lot of the shots but is kinda an old hippie and kinda spacy. A woman named Pam bought and installed a bee colony and has been trying to split the colony into two hives but Tree has been indecisive as to the location so it reached critical mass, where it swarms, meaning a new colony and queen leaves suddenly, so like 20,000 plus bees emerging all at once. At this point if the bees are not captured are given a new home/hive they will go where they please. Tree, who is the decider of these shorts of things was going on vacation when they called him and asked what to do, he didn't have Pam's number so, in haste as he is at the airport he calls another bee keeper, Bryon to come capture them. He shows up and starts capturing them and then Pam shows up to capture them too. Both parties want the bees and their claims of ownership or stewardship of the bees boils down to this.
Bryon claims that ancient apiary custom is dictates that he who arrives and captures the bees first becomes the steward of the beas, not the owner but the person he is to care for them and provide a hive for them to colonize. He is a very experienced bee keeper.
Pam claims that she bought the starter bees and equipment as a gift to the free farm with the intent and propagating and creating two healthy colonies for the farm/community. The only reason why this was even an issue is because Tree was indecisive about the location. This is her first colony and is new to the bee keeping game.
The land is owned by the church but controlled and worked by Tree, a "core group" which meets and the volunteers. The bees really belong to nobody but somebody needs to transport and care for the nascent colony. Also a lawyer in the bee keeping society was consulted and gave a neutral/lawyer response, as the actual "law" is a grey/gray area.
If it were you task to adjudicate this conflict, how would you rule and what would your reasoning be? In otherwords how would you settle this in a post-revolutionary society, assuming private ownership/stewardship of bees for public honey distribution is allowed?
So I found myself having to mediate a bee swarm capturing dispute earlier today and some interesting issues were raised during the attempted mediation. Here is the context:
I work at a community farm which grows free produce for distribution in working class/immigrant neighborhoods in San Francisco. The land was home to a church which was destroyed by fire and left untouched for 15 years or something. The church allows the land to be used for the community garden, which is all coordinated by a man by the name of Tree who calls a lot of the shots but is kinda an old hippie and kinda spacy. A woman named Pam bought and installed a bee colony and has been trying to split the colony into two hives but Tree has been indecisive as to the location so it reached critical mass, where it swarms, meaning a new colony and queen leaves suddenly, so like 20,000 plus bees emerging all at once. At this point if the bees are not captured are given a new home/hive they will go where they please. Tree, who is the decider of these shorts of things was going on vacation when they called him and asked what to do, he didn't have Pam's number so, in haste as he is at the airport he calls another bee keeper, Bryon to come capture them. He shows up and starts capturing them and then Pam shows up to capture them too. Both parties want the bees and their claims of ownership or stewardship of the bees boils down to this.
Bryon claims that ancient apiary custom is dictates that he who arrives and captures the bees first becomes the steward of the beas, not the owner but the person he is to care for them and provide a hive for them to colonize. He is a very experienced bee keeper.
Pam claims that she bought the starter bees and equipment as a gift to the free farm with the intent and propagating and creating two healthy colonies for the farm/community. The only reason why this was even an issue is because Tree was indecisive about the location. This is her first colony and is new to the bee keeping game.
The land is owned by the church but controlled and worked by Tree, a "core group" which meets and the volunteers. The bees really belong to nobody but somebody needs to transport and care for the nascent colony. Also a lawyer in the bee keeping society was consulted and gave a neutral/lawyer response, as the actual "law" is a grey/gray area.
If it were you task to adjudicate this conflict, how would you rule and what would your reasoning be? In otherwords how would you settle this in a post-revolutionary society, assuming private ownership/stewardship of bees for public honey distribution is allowed?