DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Plant Industry Division
RULES AND REGULATIONS PERTAINING TO THE ADMINISTRATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF THE BEE AND BEE PRODUCTS ACT
8 CCR 1203-4
Adopted April 11, 2019 – Effective May 30, 2019
Statutory Authority
The repeal of these Rules is proposed by the Commissioner of the Colorado Department of Agriculture (“Department”) pursuant to her authority under § 35-25-105, C.R.S., of the Colorado Bee and Bee Products Act.
Purpose
1.	The Colorado Bee Act and its Rules were adopted in 1963.  Between 1963 and 1987, the Department inspected beehives in Colorado to identify bee diseases and to prevent the spread of those diseases from one apiary to another, requiring treatment or destruction of any diseased bee hives.  
2.	In the mid 1980s,  the General Assembly mandated that the Department’s bee inspection program, which had been state-funded via the tax payer/general fund, be self-funded via registration/licensing fees paid by the owners of bee hives in Colorado.  Given this change, the Bee Advisory Committee began advocating for the decrease in registration fees almost immediately.  The Department discontinued routine bee inspections in 1987, and, by 1990, the registration requirements had been repealed, essentially defunding the bee inspection program and eliminating the Department’s responsibilities with respect to bee hive inspection and disease control.
3.	As a part of the Departments Regulatory Efficiency Review Process between 2014 and 2017 CDA initiated stakeholder meetings with various beekeeping groups (i.e., the Colorado State Beekeepers Association, the Colorado Professional Beekeepers Association, the Colorado Commercial Beekeepers Association) and attended local bee club meetings to assess the need for bee health regulation and the desire of the beekeeping community to be regulated in a self-funded manner.  CDA learned through these meetings that the majority of the beekeeping community did not want to be regulated by the Department, nor did it want to fund its own regulatory program.
4.	Because the legislature determined that the bee inspection program should be self-funded, and because the funding mechanism (i.e., registration and licensing fees) no longer exists, the Department cannot engage in or mandate treatment and control of bee diseases and parasites.
5.	The most prevalent issue faced by beekeepers concerns the health of native and managed pollinators.  Based upon its meetings with members of the beekeeping community, both large and small, the Department has determined that pollinator health can best be improved with proper education regarding forage planting, pollinator nutrition, disease control, and proper bee husbandry.  A regulatory program is not a substitute for educational programming.
6.	Pollinator health and bee husbandry is a crucial part of agriculture, and CDA will continue to survey diseases, parasites, nutrition, and education of beekeepers in proper husbandry through grant acquisitions in partnership with Colorado State University, University of Colorado, and the federal Farm Bill.
7.	The repeal of these Rules does not and will not prevent beekeepers from working with the legislature to re-establish a funding mechanism for a bee inspection and health program in the future.  In addition, should such a legislative change occur, the repeal of these Rules does not affect the Department’s ability to promulgate new rules in the future.