I know this subject has been addressed in some ways in the past.  But I
have been ruminating on the following especially with Monsanto's recent
acquisition of Remembee.

I believe that is only a matter of time until there will be a patented bee
gene that makes bees resistant to neonics or some other pesticide and some
company such as Monsanto will be marketing a patented neonic or
clothianidin ready bee.

If this were to happen it may not affect us beekeepers with a few hives.  I
would suspect that the commercial beekeeping would be treated similar to
crop farming.  By that I mean that if there is an apiary near a commercial
operation that has GMO bees and the drones from those hives open mate with
the queens from the non-GMO commercial operation, then the non-GMO
commercial operation would be in effect in possession of the patented gene
without the proper agreement to use and possess such  gene.

This has happened with crop farming such as soy beans.  There have been
non-GMO crops cross pollinated with the neighbors GMO crops and Monsanto in
these cases has sued the non-GMO farmer for harvesting his own seed since
it now has the patented Gene.

What is to prevent this from happening in beekeeping?  If your non GMO
queens are mated with drones from a GMO beekeeping operation then you
raising your own queens from that queen will be a infringement of the
patent rights of that gene's patent holder since the queens will carry the
patented gene.  I would extrapolate that the patent holder could sue the
non-GMO beekeeping operation for patent infringement and prevent the
non-GMO beekeeping operation from raising their own queens.  Or maybe some
other action due to the fact that the workers are also carry the patented
gene and in effect the hive is the equal to the GMO hive but without
licensing or payment to use or possess the patented gene.  Similar to what
has happened in agricultural crops.

 I wonder if Monsanto's acquisition of Remebee has provided them with the
fundamental research towards this end?

It may not happen tomorrow and it may not be Monsanto but I think that the
day will come. If the laws remain as they are today this may become a
significant widespread issue in particular because of the migratory
movement of colonies.

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