Opinion: Bee law a flawed effort

One of the myths of the Old West is the concept of rugged individualism — the idea that it’s possible for one man to stand alone, being completely self-sufficient. It’s an attractive idea, because who among us hasn’t gotten fed up with their neighbor, or politics, or being threatened with arrest if we don’t fully clothe ourselves before leaving the house?

Few places were actually more Old West than Silver City, Grant County, New Mexico Territory, however — and a cursory review of our history here blows some big holes in that idea that once upon a time, men were men, and every man was an island.

To begin with, what is today the municipal government known as the town of Silver City was one of the most dearly held goals of those early settlers, men — and women — who risked all that they had and their very lives to seek their fortunes in territory that was, at least to Anglo Americans, unknown and hostile. Protection from the Apache who roamed the area for centuries before required community. Then, even in those days, not everything required for life could be produced solo, requiring merchants and buildings and doctors — and so, a community was born.

Those ancestors would have argued that a limited, functional government is a necessary good, and we argue that the same is true even today.

What is harmful to that idea, however, are laws like the one regulating beekeeping now under consideration by the Silver City Town Council. That law, as proposed, goes far beyond the ability of town staff to enforce, given our limited resources — and that’s a relative blessing, given the invasiveness of the proposal.

Not every problem can be legislated out of existence, and the town’s proposed beekeeping law is a prime example of what happens when we try. Registrations, signs, random hive checks — all are meaningless to bees, which are certain to live within the corporate boundaries of Silver City, with or without our permission.

Anything that discourages beekeeping — a community resource for the control and relocation of wild beehives — is a net loss to all.

Further, the drafting of laws that are plainly unenforceable shakes the confidence of the town’s citizens in their government, breeding cynicism and, worse, creating opportunities for selective enforcement and personal payback by future civil servants.

Discussion is well and good, but the effort to regulate bees seems to us like energy that could be better used elsewhere.

— Silver City Daily Press