ABSTRACT
Some of the requirements were enforced by law from early times, for instance to prevent undue competition for forage between bees from neighbouring apiaries, to prevent livestock damaging bees or hives, and to ensure that bees would not sting people or livestock. As early as 594 BC, Solon passed a law in Athens prohibiting the placing of hives within 100 m of those belonging to someone else. According to a Danish law of 1683 (5.13.1-3), an owner of bees had to fence them against other people's animals. If the fence was inadequate, he got no compensation if animals entered and knocked the hives down, and he
had to pay compensation if cattle got inside and were stung to death. A 1793 Danish regulation stated that hives might not be placed closer to a road than 6.5 m (Andersen, 1934). In recent centuries at least 24 countries - 11 of them in Europe - passed laws on the placing of hives, some banning them altogether in built-up areas (Crane, 1990a). Examples of laws relating to the theft of hives are given in other Chapters.
