Registration Requirement for Beekeepers
Lexikon
Anyone wishing to keep bees in Germany must report this to the responsible authority no later than when the activity begins, stating the number of bee colonies and their location.
Anyone wishing to keep bees in Germany must report this to the responsible authority no later than when the activity begins, stating the number of bee colonies and their location. This is set out in Section 1a of the Bee Disease Ordinance and also follows from Article 84 of the European Animal Health Law, Regulation (EU) 2016/429. The responsible body is generally the veterinary office of the district or independent city.
The authority then issues a twelve-digit registration number for the operation. This number is needed for all further procedures, for example for health certificates for migration or for official inspections. Changes in the number of colonies and new sites must also be reported.
Registration is independent of the size of the operation and applies even to a single colony in the garden. To be seen separately from this is the notification to the Animal Disease Fund. Whether bees are subject to notification there at all is regulated by each federal state itself: in North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg, beekeepers must register, while in Bavaria and Lower Saxony bees are not recorded there. The deadlines also differ. Anyone selling honey must additionally register as a food business operator with food supervision. Austria and Switzerland have comparable notification requirements with different authorities and deadlines.