[pvaldes]

And mark a few bees would not do any harm. Would made slightly easier to find the colony later in some backyard. Workers have short lives sadly but marking queens with a number in torax is easy and feasible and the mark will last for several years. Queen and colony are the same thing, stolen colonies could be easily identified just looking at the queen.

Is not a new technology. Microfilms and microfilm viewers exist since decades so the solution is available

[bregma]

So, we need some government inspector to find and examine all the millions of hives everywhere, in case one of them was stolen? How often would these inspections be carried out? Who will pay for them? Will the inspectors have the right to enter any private property at any time to verify there are no hives anywhere? What about feral colonies: are property owners responsible if a stolen colony swarms on their land?

I think there are some practical problems with this suggestion.

[pvaldes]

Is an interesting question. Should we pursue criminals responsible of repeated damages by several hundred thousands dollars?

Well, maybe not.

This is expensive and makes you sweat. Policemen entering in private properties at any time... that's super annoying for the owners of the amphetamine labs.

Professional beekeepers could have a different opinion about that. Is a regulated economic activity valued in a few millions of dollars, and this people pay taxes also. The owner of the pink panther diamond is not the only one paying taxes here.

> Will the inspectors have the right to enter any private property at any time to verify there are no hives anywhere?

Lets assume that the government has a reasonable suspicion than lots of valuable stolen property are being stored in some place. What would they do currently?

Is not necessarily a blind shot. I assume that in theory you could triangulate stolen beehives if you mark the queens and some workers a few days before to move your 200 beehives to a new place just in case.

[ant6n]

What about the queen?