West Virginia beekeepers draft 2026 bill to increase protections and fight honey bee decline

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Mike Lamp may not be very busy as the cooling November temperatures settle on his apiary in Monongalia County, but that doesn’t mean the work stops entirely. 

Serving as the president of both the West Virginia Beekeeper’s Association and the Monongalia County Beekeeper’s Association, Lamp and several other beekeepers throughout the state are working together to shore up protections for apiarists across the state. 

Next year’s West Virginia legislative session will see a bill drafted by those beekeepers to protect the rights of beekeepers and encourage growth in the industry. The bill would create uniformity for beekeeping laws across the state, set aside funds to increase flora growth and pollination, and prepare for an incoming mite that threatens the bee population by making information about it clearer and available.

 

West Virginia saw an estimated 40% decline in the honey bee population from 2024 to 2025, according to the West Virginia Department of Agriculture. State Apiarist Shanda King said losses as high as 62% have been reported nationwide.

West Virginia Delegate Daniel Linville, R-Cabbell, said the bee decline can be attributed to a variety of factors, including harsh winters and an invasive species of mite.

The varroa mite came to the U.S. from Asia and transmits diseases throughout honey bee colonies. If enough bees in one colony die off before winter, no new worker bees can be produced and the remaining ones cannot effectively keep the queen bee warm by shivering around her, resulting in the whole colony dying off. 

Bee mortality can make it harder for farmers to produce food because there are not as many pollinators.

“When you have a healthy population of pollinators of all kinds, that is tremendous for agriculture, for farmers, for all these things,” Linville said. “The more pollinators you have, the better as it relates to all types of farming, and obviously if you have fewer, then it's a lot more difficult to produce the amount of that fruit or vegetable that you’d like.”

This upcoming bill, dubbed “The Bee Bill”, aims to fight the decline by increasing beekeeper protections in West Virginia.

The bill’s sponsors say the state’s beekeepers are dealing with an inconsistent regulatory environment  – some local governments are more neutral toward beekeeping, while others outright criminalize it.

If passed, this bill would prevent some local bans on beekeeping, eliminate unnecessary licensing, strengthen legal protections for beekeepers and raise the legal standards for nuisance complaints, according to Eryck Stamper, a beekeeper and one of the drafters of the bill. The idea is to create more uniformity around beekeeping laws within the state and leave beekeeping regulation up to the WVDA as opposed to local governments.

“The goal is to have the state, which is doing a really good job as it already is, managing the bee population and program here in West Virginia,” Stamper said.

According to Lamp, the main goal is to protect beekeepers.

“No matter where they are, they can register their bees and be safe knowing that…as long as they’re abiding by the Department of Agriculture’s standards, of course, that they don’t have to worry about being fined or going to jail or anything crazy for being beekeepers and supporting our agriculture,” he said.

In addition to creating more consistent laws, the bill will also earmark funds from the Protect Pollinator special license plates to go to the State Road Fund and be used by the West Virginia Department of Highways to create pollinator plots by planting and maintaining flora along state highways.

Finally, the bill will also help prepare for an oncoming mite similar to the varroa mite. The tropilaelaps, or “tropi” mites, have not come to the U.S. yet, but are expected to be as devastating to the population as the varroa mite. According to King, both the tropi and varroa mites can spread disease throughout honey bee colonies, but the tropi mite reproduces at a much faster rate and is much harder to detect. 

Where a varroa infestation might be manageable if caught early on, the tropi mite “can destroy a hive in weeks,” according to Jim Smith, another beekeeper supporting the bill.

The bill would define language around the newly emerging species and educate others about it. 

“We know that tropilaelaps mites are gonna be here soon,” Lamp said. “It is just a matter of time before it gets here, like varroa mites got here, like everything else does. This is just a proactive step.”

According to Linville, some things everyday people can do to help support the state’s bee population are grow pollinator friendly plants like goldenrod and dandelions, know the difference between pollen-producing plants and nectar-producing plants, which bees need to produce honey, and grow a garden or even take up beekeeping themselves.

“Hopefully, if this bill makes it across the finish line, you can start keeping bees yourself,” Linville said. “It’s not an incredibly expensive thing to do, also it’s not a crazy time commitment.”

The West Virginia Beekeepers Association also encourages people to reach out to their local representatives about the bill to try and get it passed.

“We really want folks to reach out on our behalf because there are about 2,000 of us in this state of 1.8 million people, and as much as that doesn’t sound like a big number we touch a lot of folks,” Lamp said. “We support our communities and our cities and our counties and our state as a whole and we want them to support us too.”

The drafters of this bill are overall hopeful and do not expect much pushback for it, but understand that people may want laws like this to be left up to the local level, according to Lamp.  

“There will be work to do beginning in January, but we’re hopeful that this can be one of those roughly 10% of introduced bills that can make it across the finish line,” Linville said.

West Virginia’s 2026 legislative session begins on Jan. 14 and lasts until midnight on March 14.

Alondra Molina contributed to this report.