> Here is the part of the NYS Law that authorizes a state > appointed apiary inspector (with scant qualifications) > to come on your property without your permission: No, that's just a summary from Cornell. The actual law is here, and is even more pathetic than the summary one would lead one to think: http://eshpa.org/beekeeping-laws/ Scroll down to NY Article 15, Section 173. "The commissioner shall have access to all apiaries, structures, appliances or premises where bees or honey or comb used in apiaries may be. He may open any hive, colony, package or receptacle of any kind containing or which he has reason to believe contains any bees, comb, bee products, used beekeeping appliances, or anything else which is capable of transmitting contagious or infectious diseases of bees or which is capable of harboring insects or parasitic organisms adversely affecting bees, or species or subspecies of bees which have been determined by him to cause injury, directly or indirectly, to this state's useful bee population, crops, or other plants." And in 174: "No person shall resist, impede or hinder the commissioner or his duly authorized representatives in the discharge of his or their duties." ...and in 175-d: "every person violating any of the provisions of the bee disease law shall be subject to a penalty in the sum of not less than fifty dollars nor more than two hundred dollars for the first violation, nor more than four hundred dollars for the second and each subsequent violation. Under Section 40 of the same law, a person who shall fail to obey any order of the commissioner, or who shall violate any rule of the department shall be subject to a penalty not exceeding the sum of two hundred dollars for each and every first offense, and a penalty not exceeding the sum of four hundred dollars for a second and each subsequent offense." Section 40 itself makes clear that these are PER DAY fines: "...Every violation of such order, or of the rules of the department, shall be a separate and distinct offense, and in case of a continuing violation, every day's continuance thereof shall be a separate and distinct offense." So, warrantless, suspicionless searches of private homes and property sometimes with destruction of private property and livestock without due process, and if the citizen refuses to submit to the warrantless search, DAILY fines are levied. Over "bee health"? Not exactly the sort of compelling human health and safety concern surrounding things like West Nile Virus or antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis, is it? Moreso when far more civilized places do things like shake the bees onto new gear and burn simply the woodenware, rather than burn the hive and the bees. A very thoughtful paper on the issue of "Warrantless Administrative Searches" and relevant NY court cases is linked to below, but the simple short summary is that the first person to challenge the NY inspection laws will win as easily as the Allinders did in "Allinder v. State of Ohio, 614 F. Supp. 282 (N.D. Ohio 1985)", where the Court ordered: "the Ohio Department of Agriculture is permanently enjoined and restrained from conducting warrantless, nonconsensual inspections" There's lots and lots of cases about this subject, many of them Supreme Court rulings. I can summarize all of it by saying that one needs an overwhelmingly compelling public interest to make any dent at all in the "right to be free from unreasonable searches" under Article 1, Section 12 of the NY State Constitution, and the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Allinder proved that in the slam-dunk Ohio case decades ago, I have no idea why NY thinks that they are any different. Somehow Ohio has a fine apiary program, even if they are forced to respect the right of citizens, perhaps because it is combined inspections with the sort of funded extension program that gave us people like Jim Tew. The Allinder ruling (worth a read, as it shows the Court's lack of tolerance for the State's excuses) https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/614/282/2142143/ https://tinyurl.com/yckqfgjn The beard-stroking thoughtful piece about how this trick never works without a very compelling and serious public interest to support warrantless search: http://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2675&context= lawreview https://tinyurl.com/y7tle3m3 *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html