For purposes of the Nebraska Apiary Act, unless the context otherwise requires:
(1) Abandoned apiary shall mean any apiary not regularly attended in accordance with good beekeeping practices and which constitutes a disease, parasite, or pest hazard to the beekeeping industry;
(2) Apiary shall mean any place where one or more colonies of bees or nuclei of bees are located;
(3) Bee equipment shall mean hives, supers, frames, veils, gloves, or any other apparatus, tool, machine, vehicle, or device used in the handling, moving, or manipulating of bees, honey, wax, or hives, including containers of honey or wax which may be used in any apiary or in transporting bees and their products and apiary supplies;
(4) Beekeeping shall mean the moving, raising, and producing of bees, beeswax, and honey which is an agricultural pursuit;
(5) Bees shall mean any stage of the common honeybee, Apis mellifera L;
(6) Colony shall mean the aggregate of worker bees, drones, the queen, and developing young bees living together as a family unit in a hive or other dwelling;
(7) Department shall mean the Department of Agriculture;
(8) Director shall mean the Director of Agriculture or his or her designated representative, employee, or authorized agent;
(9) Disease shall mean American foulbrood, European foulbrood, chalkbrood, sacbrood, paralysis, or any other abnormal condition of egg, larva, pupa, or adult stages of bees;
(10) Exotic disease, parasite, or pest shall mean any disease, parasite, or pest not known to be established in this state;
(11) Hive shall mean a frame hive, box hive, box, barrel, log gum, skep, or any other receptacle or container, natural or artificial, or any part thereof, which is used or employed as a domicile for bees;
(12) Nuclei shall mean a small mass of bees and combs of brood used in forming a new colony;
(13) Parasite shall mean any harmful organism living in or on bees, including, but not limited to, Varroa jacobsoni, Acarapis woodi, and Tropilaelaps clareae; and
(14) Pest shall mean any harmful subspecies of the honeybee Apis mellifera, including, but not limited to, Apis mellifera scutellata.
Words used in the act shall be construed to import either the plural or singular, as the case demands.