2023 Oklahoma Statutes › Title 2. Agriculture › §2-3-100.1. Definitions.

For purposes of the Oklahoma Apiary Act:
1. “Abandoned apiary” means any apiary not regularly attended in accordance with good beekeeping practices;
2. “Africanized honeybee” or “Apis mellifers scutellata” means a hybridized bee of African descent that at any stage of development is considered a pest to bees, humans, and animals;
3. "Apiary" means a place where one or more colonies or nuclei of bees are kept;
4. "Apiary equipment" means any apparatus, tools, clothing, machines, or other devices used in the handling and manipulation of bees, honey, wax, pollen, propolis, and hives and includes, but is not limited to, any containers of honey or wax that may be used in any apiary, any vehicle used in transporting bees and products, or apiary supplies;
5. "Bee" means any one of the honey-producing genera of Apis including any queen, worker, or drone, or any of their four life stages. The term bee includes, but is not limited to, any species of bees used for commercial pollinating purposes;
6. "Beekeeper" means a person who owns, possesses, controls, or manages one or more colonies of bees for any purpose;
7. “Bee disease” means an abnormal condition of the eggs, larvae, pupae, or adult stages of bees that impairs normal functioning;
8. “Certificate of inspection” means a document issued based on an inspection by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry or other state or province stating that the apiary, bees, and apiary equipment appear free of bee diseases and pests;
9. "Colony" means an aggregate of worker bees, drones, queen, and developing young bees and the hive and its components including comb, honey, propolis, and pollen;
10. “Feral colony” means any colony that is not managed according to good beekeeping practices;
11. "Hive" means any domicile for keeping bees;
12. "Honey house" means any room in any building where honey is extracted, stored in raw form, processed, or packaged;
13. "Migratory beekeeper" means a beekeeper who moves or transports colonies of bees into the state to a more favorable location for the purpose of wintering colonies, increasing the strength of colonies, increasing the number of colonies, providing pollination services, or for honey production;
14. “Nucleus” means any division or portion of a colony that contains comb and bees;
15. "Pest" means any living organism which is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any condition that is or may be harmful or detrimental to bees in any of their four life stages, or interferes with their management including, but not limited to, diseases, parasites, and Africanized honeybees;
16. "Pollination" means the use of bees for the transfer of pollen in crops;
17. "Premise" means any place where bees, colonies, hive, apiary equipment, or honey may be located including, but not limited to, apiaries; and
18. "Quarantine" means, but is not limited to, any order, hold, detainment, affected area, infected premise or area, movement restrictions of any kind, or notice issued by any state or federal entity specifying boundaries or conditions placed on any apiary, apiary equipment, bees, hives, or honey at its location after discovering the presence of a bee disease or pest.
Added by Laws 1988, c. 259, § 2, operative July 1, 1988. Amended by Laws 2000, c. 367, § 17, emerg. eff. June 6, 2000; Laws 2005, c. 135, § 1, eff. Nov. 1, 2005.