When I registered as a beekeeper a year or so ago, the AFB PMP Management Agency was able to re-activate my old registration, inactive for about 20 years.
I started making my first hives in 1975, and for the few years from then, the hives were always located on a registered apiary of the beekeeper I was then working for. It wasn’t until late 1978 that I bought some hives up at Lake Okareka, outside Rotorua. So by that time I had maybe 30 or 40 hives, and filled in the (paper) form for the Ministry of Ag and Fish (MAF) to register.
So I was given D0482. The “D” indicated the district at the time of registration, and the numbers would have been assigned sequentially.
I’ve mostly marked my apiary with a 50mm square post in the ground, with the D0482 painted on it, rather than branding or painting the code on the boxes themselves. So there’s another job to put on my list of things to do before the bees arrive…