Continuing on the theme of registration of hives, in the most recent edition of the ABJ

U.S. Agriculture Commissioner Doug
Goehring said 221 North Dakota beekeepers
have registered 510,000 colonies in the
state in 2014, compared to 205 beekeepers
and 482,500 colonies in 2013. More than
12,200 hive locations have been registered,
compared to 11,000 last year. North Dakota
bas led the nation in honey production for
the past decade. In 2014, the state produced
more than 42 million pounds of honey, 
23 percent of the national total. 

* * *

Anyone who keeps bees in California must register with their local County Agricultural Commissioner (CAC) on a yearly basis (any information provided in accordance with article or Section 29070 shall be held confidential). The lists of registered beekeepers of Connecticut and Texas are public. 

Beekeepers are supposed to register their hives with the Florida Department of Agriculture and even those with one hive are required to do so. A list of registered beekeepers is available on the agency’s website and beekeepers not on the list can be reported. 

Montana typically ranks in the top 10 states for honey production in the United States. The department registers all apiary sites in the state. Apiaries must be registered by April 1 of each year.
 
There are four types of apiary registrations:

General (Commercial): An apiary placed by permission on someone's property and contains more than 5 hives. All general apiaries must be 3 miles from the next general site of another registered beekeeper. This is to prevent the spread of diseases and pests from apiary to apiary and to limit and prevent interference with proper feeding of the honeybees.

Pollination: An apiary established for the pollination of commercial seed, fruit, or other commercial crop dependent on bee pollination. There is no distance limit and these registrations are for a specific time period determined by the department and must be applied for each year.

Landowner: An apiary that is registered to the owner of the land the apiary site is established on. There is no distance limit or limit on the total number of hives that can be registered.

Hobbyist: An apiary placed by permission on someone's property and limited to not more than 5 hives. There is no distance limit between apiaries required on this type of registration. Hobbyist registrations are voluntary, however, beekeepers who choose to register must pay all program fees.

* * *

Note: I am not taking or advocating a position on registration. I am merely pointing out that registration of hives is a common and accepted practice in the US and Canada

PLB

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