Maybe another route would be to make it a requirement for apiaries to be registered,
And even more difficult if the beekeeping operation is kind of nomadic...ie no fixed apairies....here there and everywhere....would they need to just register the entire county/s as you apairy,or just apairy uk.
I heard an interesting story of a beekeeper (can't remember where) who was asked to get some kind of permission from the council for his hive location. When he wanted to move it, in a series of steps (less than three foot), he simply sent in a daily update to it's changed location from one side of his garden to the other and in the end they just gave up
The reason why compulsory registration doesn't work is it's difficult to define what to register, is it the physical hive, the queen, the colony.... with a farm animal, it's quite clear what you've tagged, but hives get swapped, broken up, nucs removed for swarm control. The speed of change is faster than the administrative effort. Not only that but disease spread is slower, e.g. not as rapid as Foot and Mouth and bees swarm and move physical locations - over distances which cannot be determined prior to departure.
As mentioned, a stolen colony could be used to reinforce colonies, to make nucleus, to make good lost colonies. In short, it couldn't be proved if stolen colonies had, or hadn't been used. Overall, just an adminstrative overhead with no benefits to the beekeeper.
Contrary to some of the postings, I doubt the BBKA would be interested. The data protection issues, the lack of powers invested in an amateur organisation in terms of mandatory registration, or warrants to enter private property would just be too daunting. The government wouldn't buy into it (generally) as their wouldn't be an obvious source of revenue benefit, or reduction in running costs.
Adam
Adam
