Friday August 28, 2015: Twelve full beehives were stolen from a field in Innisfail, Alberta. That was a loss of about 600,000 bees, and honey, and hives, totalling about $10,000. The beekeeper, Kevin Nixon, is offering a $1000 reward for information that helps find them.
I can think of two possibilities here:
1. Someone wanted to start a beekeeping operation, for free, with very heavy hives carried from the field and loaded into a truck by hand, while full of agitated bees. That doesn't seem like a very good plan, aside from the loss it cost Nixon.
2. Activists have "liberated" domestic honeybees. Not a good plan either.
While I was reading about this, I found a bunch of other cases of honeybee theft, and I wasn't even looking for them. Beehive theft has been a growing problem for a number of years (more under the cut).
The Nixon honey farm on Wednesday. You can see the stands where the hives are missing (CBC). |
I can think of two possibilities here:
1. Someone wanted to start a beekeeping operation, for free, with very heavy hives carried from the field and loaded into a truck by hand, while full of agitated bees. That doesn't seem like a very good plan, aside from the loss it cost Nixon.
2. Activists have "liberated" domestic honeybees. Not a good plan either.
While I was reading about this, I found a bunch of other cases of honeybee theft, and I wasn't even looking for them. Beehive theft has been a growing problem for a number of years (more under the cut).