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Mon, 28 Nov 2022 10:33:36 -0800 |
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>I guess the $64,000 question is: what regulations would you be comfortable
with?
Our County in the Sierra Foothills was facing being inundated with large
(200+) drops of hives during the summer, when there was no forage near the
almond orchards in the Central Valley below us. The large-scale beekeepers
didn't care about making honey -- they only wanted to keep their colonies
alive, and could drive up and supplementally feed them.
Unfortunately, that meant that no local beekeeper within a couple of miles
would harvest a single pound of honey. It was a case of The Tragedy of the
Commons.
So I proposed that our local beekeepers association ask our County
Government to adopt a self-protective ordinance to limit stocking rates on
our shared pasture. I worked with our Ag Commissioner, county council, and
members of our group to create an ordinance that protected local hobbyists,
we few local professionals, as well as the native pollinators.
We defined any apiary of 10 or more colonies as commercial, and limited
their registration to a radius of 2 miles separation between
commercial apiaries (grandfathering in all existing registered locations).
And we limited the stocking rate of any apiary between May and October to
48 colonies. We have exceptions for nucleus colonies and paid pollination
contracts. No limits were placed on apiaries of less than 10 hives.
At the hearing for the ordinance, we beekeepers showed up and spoke for its
need, and of our support for it. So far (two years now), it's worked well.
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
530 277 4450
ScientificBeekeeping.com
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