## Facts

- Brown kept a colony of bees on his property in Yonkers, New York.
- The bees swarmed and left Brown’s premises.
- Eckes observed the swarm while working on another person’s land.
- Eckes used a customary method (pounding on tin) to cause the swarm to alight, then removed the bees at the landowner’s request.
- Eckes delivered the bees to Stevens, a beekeeper who claimed he had recently lost a swarm.
- Brown claimed the captured swarm was his and asserted continuing ownership despite the swarm’s departure.
- The parties agreed bees are *ferae naturae* (wild animals).
- After a larceny allegation was not pursued criminally, the dispute proceeded as a civil controversy over ownership.

## Issues

1. Whether a beekeeper retains a qualified property interest in a swarm after it leaves the beekeeper’s land, given the classification of bees as *ferae naturae*.
2. Whether a third party who captures a swarm after it has left the owner’s premises acquires superior title by occupancy.

## Decision

- The court held that Brown retained a qualified property interest in the swarm after it left his premises.
- The court ruled that the swarm did not become the absolute property of the subsequent captor merely because it had left Brown’s land.
- The court recognized Brown’s superior claim to the bees over Eckes and Stevens.

## Legal Principles

- Bees are treated as *ferae naturae*, so property is generally based on possession (occupancy) and may be lost when the animals regain natural liberty.
- A person who has lawfully reduced wild animals to possession may retain a qualified property right against later takers until the animals have fully escaped and resumed an unowned, wild condition.
- For swarming bees, the original beekeeper’s qualified property may continue after departure from the hive when the bees remain subject to pursuit and recapture, consistent with customary beekeeping practices.

## Conclusion

The court applied wild-animal occupancy doctrine to beekeeping and concluded that an escaped swarm does not instantly become unowned; the original beekeeper keeps a qualified property right, enforceable against later captors, while the swarm remains practically recoverable through pursuit and recapture.


Brown v. Eckes, 160 N.Y.S. 489 (Yonkers City Ct. 1916)