>"I wonder what is provoking such legislative changes given all the sympathy that honey bees and pollinators of all kinds have enjoyed for the past few >years. How bad the few bad apples had to be to provoke such restrictions?!"
It doesn't take much to set people off. From the way this story was presented, especially the video, it sounds like half the town is at risk and children in a nearby park are in danger, all from a single hive (inflammatory news?):
http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2017/07/15/ramsey-beekeeper-attacked-swarm-authorities-say/481998001/
or this version, which even speculates that the bees might have been 'Africanized':
http://gothamist.com/2017/07/16/extraordinary_swarm_of_aggressive_b.php
According to this story, the beekeeper was found unconscious in his driveway with multiple bee stings, and both he and his wife were hospitalized.
There is a lot of urban and suburban development in northeastern New Jersey (I grew up there in Bergen County). I'm surprised it's taken this long for reactionary people to push forward this kind of legislation. Honestly, in zoned residential areas, I don't see a problem with at least some of the proposed regs. If I lived on a 50 x 125 ft lot in an urban area surrounded by similar sized lots (at one time I did), and, if I did not keep bees (at the time I didn't), I'm not sure I'd be happy, if my next door neighbor kept a dozen hives in his/her backyard up against my property line even with a protective barrier. I take a few stings every year, when I mow in front of my own bees here on my 60-acre spread. Getting stung by someone else's bees, while mowing my little backyard lawn or, worse, having a party in the yard on a day, when the bees were in a bad mood and decided to take exception to the noise and activity, would not have made me happy. A couple of years ago, my sister and bro-in-law in Rutherford, also in Bergen County, sent me pics of a swarm of bees that had settled into one of their cedar trees right next to the walkway to the pool. Being up here in NH, there was nothing I could do about it, except tell them to find a beekeeper in the phone book, who did removals. Fortunately, the swarm moved on the next day, but there's a good chance it settled into someone else's house or garage and became their problem. I'm not a betting man, but, if I was, I'd have bet that that swarm came from a nearby hive, since they are smack in the middle of a suburban jungle. All of my family, from my mother to my youngest nephew, who at the time were 80 and 5, respectively) have suited up to work 'Uncle Bill's bees', so they know a little something about bees and what not to do. But, in another backyard, where people are ignorant about bees, I can imagine kids throwing rocks at a swarm, or a homeowner spraying them with a can of wasp killer with unfortunate consequences.
Anyway, I know beekeepers can operate hives in harmony with their neighbors. But, as was pointed out by the OP, it only takes a couple of bad apples to ruin it for everyone. I would expect this kind of legislative initiative to resurface every time there is an incident of this nature. And, unlike gun owners, beekeepers don't have a strong advocacy group, like the NRA, to lobby on their behalf. Maybe proposing alternative legislation, derived from current and more reasonable laws already in place elsewhere (what are the laws in NYC, where there is a significant beekeeping community?), might work. I found the following NYC requirements, which include registration, but not sure that is the full set of regs:
https://www1.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/description/beekeeper-registration/operation
Good luck down there,
Bill
Claremont, NH US
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