Ohio Support Letter
Use this form to send the following email to your Ohio Representatives and Ohio Senators.
To search for your regional leadership, please use the links below.
Ohio Representatives https://www.ohiohouse.gov/members/district-map
Ohio Senators https://www.ohiosenate.gov/members/district-map
The following message will be sent to your selected representative:
To Whom this May Concern,
As a supporter of the Ohio State Beekeepers Association, I’m in full support of maintaining a healthy industry for the current, new, and next generation of beekeepers and stakeholders. We are now asking for your support in repealing the new ORC 909.01 Apiary Laws or supporting a new House Bill.
The Ohio State Beekeepers Association has been collecting information, listening to feedback, and having open meetings with stakeholders. As of today, we have had well over 1000+ phone calls, texts, and emails about the upcoming changes to the Ohio Revised Code 909.01 laws to our industry. While we agree with some of the points, there are several points that deeply concern us, which we want to discuss.
The underfunding of our program has been an issue for the last 15+ years. However, we have personally visited with the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s leadership team with leaders and members of the Ohio State Beekeepers Association. We have had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. David Daniels, Mrs. Dorothy Pelanda, and Mr. Brian Baldridge.
Recommendations for the current House Bill 96, which was drafted, approved, and signed by the Ohio Governor in February 2025. Changes to the 909.01 laws regarding fees and a very different language method of registering apiaries were made, without any input or consideration from our Ohio beekeepers. We are concerned that the current changes and potential future changes will diminish the Apiary Law and reduce the effectiveness of ODA to enforce laws to minimize the spread of bee pests and diseases.
We have had a Zoom conference call in July about the upcoming changes to the Ohio Revised 909.01 laws and early planning on how it would be implemented within ODA. We are concerned about the underfunding of the ODA Apiary Program and the perceived lack of interest in strengthening it, as it has already been underfunded for decades. Based upon the information your staff provided and the annual 2024 report, there are over 7000 registered beekeepers and 440 queen certificates issued, and over 10,307 apiaries registered. The current program is $5.00 per apiary registration (x) times 10,307 registered apiaries = $51,535.00 in revenue. With the proposed ORC 909 changes, only implementing the $50.00 per queen certificate (x) time 440 issued certificates = $22,000.00 in revenue. This is underfunding the program by $29.535.00. For 2026, if you receive even half of the 440 queen certificates from beekeepers filing for a certificate, the revenue for 220 certificates will result in only $11,000.00! No business or municipal/state department can afford to cut its revenue stream that drastically.
OSBA Board Members, have reviewed the new proposed ORC 909 changes for many of the other industries impacted, and saw overall increases in their fees, licenses, and late fees. The only industry that is being underfunded is the Ohio Apiary Inspection Program.
Examples:
H.B. 96 increases inspection, licensing, and registration fees in many ag and food related industries. For instance, the budget bill:
• Increases the cost of a license to manufacture and distribute fertilizer in the state of Ohio from $5 to $50. If the manufacturer/distributor fails to renew their license, the late fees increase from $10 to $25.
• Increases the annual base inspection fee for plant nurseries that produce, sell, or distribute woody nursery stock from $100 to $200. On top of the inspection fee, there is a charge of $15 per acre for nursery stock grown in intensive production areas, and a charge of $10 per acre for nursery stock grown in non-intensive production areas.
• Changes the annual registration fees for bakeries. The fee used to begin at $30 and go up depending on how much product the bakery produced. H.B. 96 changes the annual bakery registration fee to a flat $200.
• Increases the license fee for frozen food manufacturing facilities, chill rooms, sharp freezing rooms and facilities, or sharp freezing cabinets from $50 to $200.
Seed labeler permits
In Ohio, no person is allowed to label agricultural, vegetable, or flower seed that is intended for sale in the state without a seed labeler permit. The budget bill makes the following changes to commercial seed labeler permits:
• Increases the cost of permits from $10 to $50.
• Licensing fees for dealers and brokers used to be based on the number of head of livestock they sold per year. The new language creates a flat fee of $250 per annum.
• Increases licensing fees for small dealers from $25 to $50, and late fees for small dealers from $25 to $100.
• Increases licensing fees for each licensed weigher and each employee appointed by a livestock dealer from $20 to $30.
On top of these proposed Ohio changes, we are in the process of losing the USDA Bee Lab in MD. The USDA is underway with a complete reorganization and closing of five labs throughout the United States. We have confirmed this information through direct communications with Dr. Jay Evans of the Beltsville Leadership Team. OSBA is testifying to the importance of the lab and its crucial research on honey bee health with Maryland’s Federation Delegation to legislators from Washington, DC. Because of the Bee Industry’s outcry for BARC’s essential support, USDA has since extended their open public comment period for a third time to September 30, 2025.
Knowing how important this lab is to our Ohio apiary program with their policy to test our samples for free each year. Dr. Mohamed Alburaki (USDA Beltsville Bee Lab Researcher) stated, “Ohio is the leading state of samples given to them each year. From 1984 to 2022, the BRL processed 23,066 samples for Ohio”. These facts are also published in Bee Culture magazine, May 2024. Helping save colonies from nosema, AFB, EFB, and prevalence of resistance to antibiotics. Even with ODA building the new BSL3 lab, ODA does not have the staffing or funding to manage the samples even within our own state. With an estimate of 607 bee samples per year, times $40 per sample, the cost is about $24,280.00 to BARC that presently provides Ohio apiary inspectors and Ohio beekeepers for free. This important lab is an example of true support to help to keep our healthy bee industry safe.
Wanting to seek information within Ohio, we have personally visited well over 22 beekeeping clubs and associations throughout Ohio to gather more information. In speaking to beekeepers, we have asked the same questions and received just about the same feedback from everyone.
1. Do you agree with waiving the $5.00 apiary fee to implement queen certificate of $50.00? Everyone agrees that if this happens, beekeepers may not stay in the habit of registering their apiaries. Per Rich Wieski, President of Michigan State Beekeepers, “This is the exact position that Michigan beekeepers face here; no inspections, no registrations, and an overabundance of colony diseases.”
2. Would you agree to pay per registered beekeeper, no matter how many apiaries you have and to what costs would you pay to have a viable program? We ask everyone to raise their hands to the current $5.00 fee they are paying now but, as we increase it by $5.00 increments as we watch the hands go down. (Example: $5.00, $10.00, $15.00, and $20.00) With announcing each amount, up to the $20.00 level 98% of the attendees keep raising their hands. Once we ask for $25.00 you lose 60% to 80% percent, that hands drop. At each meeting, the 2% of beekeepers who dropped out previously are beekeepers that plan to pay the $50.00 for their queen/nuc certificate. With over 7000 beekeepers registering at $20.00, that would give you an estimated revenue of $140,000.00. Plenty enough to test samples, provide ODA with disease primers for testing, and possibly money for someone to test those samples. 3. We finished with the following open-ended question, “What are your top concerns with the apiary program?” With an unanimous response of “healthy bees”. The other top five responses were; better inspectors and education, problems with commercial beekeepers not registering their apiaries, outreach throughout the year of the status of Ohio bees, online registration and payment method, and enforcement of beekeepers with disease and non-registered apiaries. Another common concern were people who advertised selling queens and nucs online with no apparent follow up by ODA.
For the most part, all beekeepers that have reached out to OSBA are content with most of the changes of the Ohio Revised Code 909.01, with these two major discrepancies;
1. Beekeepers are asking for a (hobbyist) queen certificate, who plan to sell 25 queens or less, or combined to pay the $20.00 certificate fee. This leaves the (business) queen certificates for those raising 25 queens or more for the full $50.00 registration.
2. Not eliminating the $5.00 per apiary registration fee. Having no responsibility or costs for beekeepers removes their accountability.
If you decide to follow through with the BeeCheck program for registration, we would ask to have a public and private posting option. This will stop other beekeepers from seeing each other’s apiaries, stopping thefts of queens, gear, and hives…as California, Florida, Ohio and other states have had in the past. We do want sprayers to have access to see all registered colonies, as pesticide applicators must be licensed to have an account and to use the software. Hive theft and destruction are extremely expensive losses for beekeepers, especially commercial beekeepers, estimated $800.00 per hive.
Though we understand many changes to the new Ohio Revised Code 909.01 from House Bill 96, we like others to be changed. The OSBA board has reached out to many different senators/representatives, county commissioners, and state leaders. We know there is not enough time to change the language by September 30. The Ohio State Beekeepers Association agrees that this leaves us with only two other options.
1. Sending support letters, calling campaign, and outreach to rescind support for the 909.01 apiary language, by September 30, 2025.
2. If it does pass, we will be asking our State Legislators and leaders to support a new House Bill to retract the 909.01 apiary language changes.
A statement that “we” would be setting back the ODA Apiary Program by not allowing it to move forward. This is the same program that has been in existence since Mr. John Grafton and another State Inspector, was about to retire and ODA had little to no plan on replacing these inspectors. OSBA and stakeholders rose up in support to keep a viable, healthy program; only then was Mrs. Barb Bloetscher hired in 2009. The only upgrade to the apiary program was last year, with the launch of the online inspection format program that OSBA Officers, Mr. Roger Myers, Mr. Jacob Sublett, and Mr. Jamie Walters approached ODA about and was graciously pre-launched in 2024, for which OSBA appreciates. We support progress, but we request having a solid implementation of a program that supports beekeepers and the OSBA Apiary Program. Working with ODA is our goal to have a program that can be maintained at the office level, as well as enforce laws to keep Ohio bees strong and healthy. This is a crucial part, too.
The statement of “there will always be money for it”, if it is underfunded, how long can that last, before it becomes insignificant and is pushed to the side or cut completely out? While Michigan had a fully funded, statewide apiary inspection program, it was discontinued in the early 1980’s, due to financial budget cuts. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) still provides some inspections, but only on request with a significant fee charge. Due to the loss of a statewide apiary program, bee diseases have become common, resulting in high losses. It is unknown how severe the programs are. Other states claimed that they burn many colonies in Michigan every year due to chronic cases of AFB.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
