Really?! What good does registering you hives do? What's your motivation?
Your motivation to register your beeyards is because it is required by law.
We have very weak protections in Ohio against pesticide poisoning. To have any legal protection against pesticide poisoning, you have to post a sign at the road (I believe a certain size) clearly stating the exact location of the hives, the owner, and the contact information for the owner. You must also post a sign in the beeyard with the same info. It sticks in my mind that you may have a burden to contact all the spray applicators in the area also.
and took it upon himself to declare many of our yards to have AFB and burned them without even notifying us before hand.
From what I understand, a commercial beekeeper had several hives burned. He sued the state and won something like $1.2 million. The court ruled that if an inspector finds foulbrood, they are required to give the hive owner the opportunity to medicate the hive. The inspector has to make repeated visits to check a foulbrood hive, and the owner has to ignore all the warnings, before the state can burn a hive.
Who is the fool? The one eating the food the farmer has poisioned or the one asking him to stop?
Considering that <2% of Americans are farmers, and the other 98% percent demand cheap food be provided to them - the one asking the farmer to stop producing food is the fool. Do you grow all of your own food? Are you willing to grow food for not only yourself, but 50 other people? Are you willing to pay 1/2 of your paycheck to buy food like people in other countries? If not, then you have no room to complain.
But when sprays drift from his property to yours or mine, it is no longer an individual issue - it now involves a group of people.
Spray drift is a minimal issue. You don't spray when it is windy.
Spray drift is not what kills hives.
Your arguments fall into the category of FUD - fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Following your logic, you might kill someone with your car, shoot someone, stab someone, or commit any number of crimes. We should just throw you in jail to protect everyone else.
Assuming it didn't run off into streams it would still leach into the water table and from there it goes hundreds of miles.
What about rainwater? Far more water is contaminated by naturally occurring chemical compounds than agricultural sprays. You do know why the oceans are salty, right?
Yesterday my local bee club had a beginner beekeepers class. I stood off to the side and shook my head no almost the entire time the bee inspector was giving his talk. He is completely misinformed, and trying to justify his $18 an hour, unlimited hour job. For example, he was going on about how much of a problem small hive beetles are, and I finally spoke up and asked him if we had SHB in our county - he sheepishly admitted that SHB has never been found here. Then he started going on about how much of a problem foulbrood was, until I spoke up and asked him how often he has found foulbrood. (once, and he wasn't positive it was fb) Once again, he sheepishly admitted that foulbrood is 'not very often'. Then he was talkign about how feeding essential oils to bees coats the varroa mites with the oils and suffocates the mites. (Anyone see the BS in that?)