In my state, routine inspections are required by a State Apiarist:
> All honeybee colonies must be registered and inspected for diseases, mites, and Africanized bees. Surveys are conducted for Africanized bees along Delaware’s coastal anchorages and in the Ports of Wilmington and Delaware City. By law, the State Apiarist and state bee inspectors may enter any public or private premises and have access to and from all apiaries or places where bees and bee equipment are kept to inspect them for pests and diseases. The State Apiarist may also declare a quarantine and order the destruction or treatment of hives for serious pest or disease situations.
My brain is so rotted from the news that I can’t read this and not think it’s some sort of bee racism. Is this related to averting nationwide colony collapse? Seems like government overreach to my uninformed self.
There are bee diseases that are so serious (American foulbrood) that if your hive gets it then the dept of agriculture will come out and not leave until you burn the affected hives. It is super infectious and can cause massive commercial damage if allowed to spread.
The main reason for inspection laws is to control American Foul Brood. It's very destructive and since bees travel miles, it can spread similar to a public health outbreak. Africanized bees are only a concern in some area, but can be a threat to human life. The fact that Delaware wants to inspect for them does seem to be overreach as their range seems to be stalled much further west for unknown reasons. The inclusion of mite inspections seems like overreach as there are no therapies to completely eliminate them and they are already in every hive.
Beekeepers have varroa under control. But the state loves to be able to declare medical emergencies for animals (cull all the chickens!!), including beehives.
It is control for control's sake. Honeybees are doing fine except for the ones that are driven around to provide fertilization services -- those bees are exposed to very high pesticide doses and -surprise!- have high loss rates. (The same is true for non-mobile beehives in areas that have high pesticide loads.)
Most problems with beehives are down to old brood comb not getting managed out. Feral bees don't have that problem because they swarm and build a new hive when their old one gets small, and they'll leave altogether (not just split) when the brood comb gets old.
It's all bad management, but God forbid you have a beekeeping hobby, no, you must get inspected and the state apiarist gets to come on your property w/o a warrant and they can burn your hives.
Which is sort of dumb because it turns out Africanized bees have better resistance to varroa mites. They’ve cross bred with the locals as they’ve come north and the majority of them have mellowed out considerably.
Since others are sharing negative stories about state inspectors, thought I'd share a positive one.
In MA, state bee inspections are optional, but you can request one for free once per year. As a new beekeeper, I found it helpful, as the inspectors were highly knowledgeable and friendly.
I ended up deciding to stop keeping bees after two years. My colony died over the winter, so when I sold my equipment, it was helpful to have an official inspection report saying that my equipment was checked and had no signs of disease except for varroa.
In Texas if you want to use bees for ag exemptions (property tax breaks), you need to show that you have active beehives, but no inspections take place. In other rather stupid states you have to have your hives inspected because oh-no-it's-varroa!
This is incorrect. TX has an aviary inspector whose purpose is to check for infectious diseases. As in most states, varroa is not considered a concern since it can't be fully eliminated.
But they don't get to come into your property, unannounced, without a warrant, to do an inspection. In fact, they can only inspect your hives if you ask them to. See Texas Agriculture Code § 131.044.
