Beekeepers across the country are turning to anti-theft technology to defend their hives after thousands of dollars worth of them have been stolen in the past few weeks.
Just as the almond trees began to bloom, beehive theft rose to an extent so worrisome that beekeepers have begun to install anti-theft technology such as GPS tracking devices and surveillance cameras into shipments to protect their hives.
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Thievery of the colonies has risen across the country, with three hives containing roughly 60,000 bees being taken last week from central Pennsylvania, a report noted.
California, which is witnessing the largest pollination event in the world, is enduring the worst of the large-scale theft.
Almost 1,036 beehives worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken from the state’s orchards in the past few weeks, police said. The largest beehive heist saw 384 hives stolen, and a reward of $10,000 was offered for any information that could result in their return, according to the report.
Beehive Thefts”It’s hard to articulate how it feels to care for your hives all year only to have them stolen from you,” Claire Tauzer posted to Facebook.
Tauzer’s prayers were answered a day later when a forklift and the majority of the family’s boxes were recovered nearly 55 miles away from Tauzer’s rural property, according to the report.
Billions of honeybees have reportedly been trucked to California to help almond growers pollinate their crops.
Beehive Thefts
Helio Medina, another beekeeper who saw 282 hives stolen almost a year ago, finally found honeycomb frames, authorities said.
“We have to do what we can to protect ourselves. Nobody can help us,” Medina said.
Medina is now taking measures to protect his hives.
He installed GPS trackers inside the boxes, attached cable locks to them, installed cameras around his property, and has begun patrolling his orchard, he said.
Beehive theft is most common at night when orchards are empty and the bees are in their hives, the report noted.
The thieves are beekeepers or individuals familiar with the process, authorities said.
“More often than not, they steal to make money and leave the bees to die,” Rowdy Freeman, a Butte County sheriff’s detective tracking hive thefts since 2013, said.
The bee population has become unstable recently due to disease, habitat loss, and insecticides, and this problem, coupled with thievery, is crippling the lives of beekeepers, the report noted.
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“For every $210 paid to rent a beehive, we put close to that much into it the whole year feeding the bees because of drought. We do all the health checks, which is labor intensive, and we pay our workers full benefits,” Tauzer said.
