About a thousand beehives worth hundreds of thousands of dollars have been reported stolen across California in the past few weeks.
Beekeeper Hello Medina displays a beehive frame outfitted with a GPS locater that will be installed in one of the beehives he rents out, in Woodland, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. As almond flowers start to bloom, beekeepers rent their hives out to farmers to pollinate California's most valuable crop, but with the blossoms come beehive thefts. Medina says last year he lost 282 hives estimated to be worth $100,000, and is now installing GPS-enabled sensors to help find the stolen hives.
. They happen at a larger scale and uniquely in California this time of year because bees are most in demand during the largest pollination event in the world.In the past few weeks, 1,036 beehives worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were reported stolen from orchards statewide, authorities said.
Medina said the theft devastated his apiary, so this year he placed GPS trackers inside the boxes. He also strapped cable locks around them and installed cameras nearby. As the almond bloom approached and the hives became most valuable, he drove around patrolling the orchards in the dark.Thefts usually happen at night, when no one is in the orchard and the bees are back in their hives. The rustler is usually a beekeeper or someone familiar with the transportation of bees.
The demand for bees has steadily risen over the last 20 years as popularity of the healthy, crunchy nut turned California into the world's biggest almond producer. Accordingly, the amount of land used to grow almonds has more than doubled to an estimated 1.3 million acres .Beekeepers have been keeping up with that growth by providing an ever-increasing proportion of the nation's available stock of hives.
The drought that gripped Western states last summer also weakened colonies. The lack of rain ravaged wildflowers that provide the nectar that bees turn into honey. Beekeepers had to artificially supplement their diet with sugar solutions and pollen substitutes — and incur more costs.For beekeepers, the loss of a hive means the loss of income from honey production and future pollination, not to mention the expense of managing the hive throughout the year. They say they hardly break even.
He said some beekeepers have tried tagging their boxes with SmartWater CSI, a forensic tool used to help police trace recovered stolen property. The clear liquid is visible only under UV light, even through layers of paint, so police can ascertain the rightful owner even when thieves try to disguise boxes.
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