The French Prefect of the Police has determined to carry out a little measure of expulsion of his own. Paris contains a population of forty millions of bees, the property of persons who are not deterred from turning a penny on the sale of honey by the difficulties surrounding bee-keeping in a crowded city. Though the industrious insects, as we are reminded by the Virgilian line, are not in business for themselves, they are depredators on a gigantic scale for the profit of their owners.
The few flowers within the Paris fortifications being quite insufficient to supply them with a stock-in-trade, they have fallen into the reprehensible habit of collecting their materials in the sugar factories and even in the shops of grocers, confectioners, and pastry-cooks. One manufacturer estimates that he is yearly relieved of a thousand pounds' worth of sugar by the winged pilferers. The intruders decline to be chased away, and the workmen complain of being constantly stung by them. For these reasons the Prefect of Police has tabooed bee-keeping in Paris, the law, it appears, giving him jurisdiction over industries which are a nuisance to the neighbourhood where they are carried on.
The Irish Times, July 13th, 1880.