- Registering your hive/s grants liability protection to beekeepers (cheap insurance policy).
- The lack of hive registration could affect the amount of resources that Washington State receives for its pollinators.
- Finally registration helps our State determine what is happening to our honeybees.
Every year beekeepers are required to register their name, address, phone number, and number of hives to be owned for the year with the Washington State Department of Agriculture. WSDA collects the registration fee and deposits all of it into an account which, by rule, can only be spent on apiary activities by WSDA or funding research as directed by the Apiary Advisory Committee. This committee is all beekeepers with a few representatives from agriculture and WSDA. Lately these funds have been authorized for WSU researchers and to raise public awareness of the importance of honey bees in pollination.
You are registering as a beekeeper and the quantity of hives you expect to have this year. WSDA knows hives are lost and made often, and won’t be concerned if you register 10 but only have 5 and vice versa. The reasoning, originally, behind registering is to enable WSDA to contact beekeepers quickly in the event of a statewide beekeeping emergency, and also to know the size of beekeeper and hive populations in the state. WASBA urges all beekeepers to register themselves and the number of hives they expect to have. You may do so here. WSDA provides more info on beekeeper registration here.