8,000 bees worth over $20,000 stolen from hives in Queensland
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "8,000 bees worth over $20,000 stolen from hives in Queensland")
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Around 8,000 bees and brood were allegedly stolen from 41 commercial hives in Queensland, with beekeepers suspecting an industry insider.
Around 8000 bees worth more than $20,000 have been stolen from Far North in Queensland. Investigators say frames of bees and their broods were taken from 41 commercial hives on the Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns, and put into the thief's separate hive boxes. Jack Laughton, the commercial beekeeper, said that each hive contained about 15,000 bees, altogether 500,000 stolen in total.
"Brood nests have been gutted, and hives put back together … which is an initial loss of property, somewhere around up to $20,000 worth of hives so far," said Tom Bidner, who managed Mr Laughton's beehives.
According to Bidner and the Queensland Police, the crime required specialised knowledge and equipment, pointing heavily to an inside job by a commercial operator. The alleged theft happened at multiple different properties in different areas and required a sophisticated operation and specialist equipment. Rather than stealing the physical wooden hives, they used professional gear to swap out internal frames and remove the brood boxes where the bees reproduce. The honey in the hives was left untouched.
“They’re rocking up with a truckload of gear, basically, and they’re transferring our frames into their boxes … and putting our hives back together, so it doesn’t sort of alert any of the growers that it looks like someone’s been in and done such a thing,” said Bidner.
The apiarists will not just lose the insects but also their pollination contracts. The incident happened as beekeepers are reeling from the arrival of the varroa mite parasite- a devastating bee parasite. Bidner said the thefts and the parasite were a “double whammy”.
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“This isn’t over yet,” he said. “We’ve got so many colonies to get through. We’re still getting around and checking all our different sites.”
The Mareeba Rural and Stock Crime Squad is actively investigating the case. Bidner said that bee theft had happened before, but this was the biggest one by far in his memory. He suspects that the culprits are probably from within the industry.
