{"id":1925255,"date":"2026-05-07T18:45:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1925255"},"modified":"2026-05-07T18:45:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:45:03","slug":"police-looking-for-jerks-who-allegedly-stole-150000-worth-of-beehives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1925255","title":{"rendered":"Police Looking for Jerks Who Allegedly Stole $150,000 Worth of Beehives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/05\/NSW-Police-Stolen-Beehives-1200&#215;675.jpeg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"post-2000755716 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-biology tag-agriculture tag-bees tag-parasites tag-weird-crime\">\n<div class=\"entry-content prose dark:prose-invert lg:prose-xl prose-science dark:prose-science\">\n<p>Have any of you seen 80 boxes of bees lying around? Mostly cream in color, with blue baseboards, blue-and-white lids, and red clear boards through which, perhaps, one might be able to glimpse some honeybees or honeycombs.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this an all-points bulletin: Police with the rural crime prevention team in the Australian state of New South Wales are on the lookout for an estimated $150,000 worth of missing beehives, presumed stolen. The bees disappeared from a property in the high-elevation agricultural region of the state\u2019s northern tablelands, about 9.32 miles (15 kilometers) west of the village of Bonshaw, along Bruxner Way, and 62.14 miles (100 km) northwest of the town of Glen Innes. NSW police believe this apparently daring heist (bees can sting) would most likely have been executed sometime between Tuesday March 31 and Wednesday May 6, 2026.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote text-center\">\u201cThe only people that steal bees are beekeepers. Like, no one else goes in and steals any hives of bees\u2026 What else are you going to do with them unless you\u2019re a beekeeper?\u201d<\/aside>\n<p>One local apiarist who spoke to The Guardian, Mitch McLennan at The Honey Shed in the nearby village of Tabulam, described the alleged crime as likely a \u201cdevastating\u201d loss for the bees\u2019 owner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s terrible, it\u2019s such a big loss,\u201d McLennan told the British newspaper\u2014adding that such crimes have \u201cbecome quite commonplace now\u201d as many desperate beekeepers struggle with the economic toll of hives ravaged by the invasive <em>Varroa destructor<\/em> species of mite.<\/p>\n<h2>The usual suspects<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThe only people that steal bees are beekeepers,\u201d according to McLennan. \u201cLike, no one else goes in and steals any hives of bees\u2026 What else are you going to do with them unless you\u2019re a beekeeper?\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2000755849\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2000755849\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2000755849\" src=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/05\/NSW-Police-Missing-Beehives-Missing-253x336.jpeg\" alt=\"Nsw Police Missing Beehives Missing\" width=\"253\" height=\"336\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2000755849\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u00a9 NSW Police Force Rural Crime Prevention Team, via Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Farmland across the world has seen a rise in apiary burglaries over the past decade. Over 10,000 hives were reported stolen in California during this period, for example, estimated at $3.5 million in lost profits, according to a white paper put out by the California State Beekeepers Association in 2025. Hive thefts have \u201cescalated\u201d\u2014as the paper\u2019s author, University of California, Davis entomologist Elina L. Ni\u00f1o, noted\u2014\u201cparticularly during almond pollination when hive rental prices peak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThieves may place stolen hives under fraudulent pollination contracts, collect payments, and abandon the colonies,\u201d Ni\u00f1o wrote.<\/p>\n<p>After a messy smash-and-grab looted beehives from an apiarist\u2019s boxes in NSW\u2019s Benandarah State Forest back in 2023, local Australian beekeeper groups advised that their members start deploying GPS trackers and CCTV cameras to protect their colonies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou put a microchip inside the beehive and the signal can be picked up by your mobile phone,\u201d Laurie Kershaw, a branch president with the NSW Apiarists\u2019 Association, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and \u201cif that beehive moves, say, 6 or 7 inches from its location, you can see that someone\u2019s even tampering with your bees.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Curse of the \u2018werewolf\u2019 bee parasite<\/h2>\n<p>The spooky-sounding parasitic mite <em>Varroa destructor<\/em> first began leaping from its native host, the Asian honey bee or <em>Apis cerana<\/em>, into hives across Europe and the Americas during the 1970s and 80s. For decades, scientists had initially likened the mite to a blood-sucking vampire until research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, discovered that the mite actually lives off the fat of honeybees.<\/p>\n<p>As USDA entomologist Samuel Ramsey rather vividly put it to Science News in 2019, the <em>Varroa destructor<\/em> \u201cis feeding on flesh more like a werewolf.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2000755736\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2000755736\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2000755736\" src=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Female-Varroa-destructor-bee.jpg\" alt=\"Varroa Destructor\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1285\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2000755736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Above, a female Varroa destructor on the head of a bee nymph. Credit: Gilles San Martin via Wikimedia Commons, CC 2.0 license<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Biologists have come to view the mites as a \u201cmajor driver of honeybee declines worldwide,\u201d but this stress on beekeepers (and inducement to bee theft) appears to be creating a destructive feedback loop. According to Kershaw, the blackmarket movement of purloined hives risks exacerbating the damage done by the parasite, given that criminals would likely want to avoid exposing themselves via the routine mandatory inspections conducted by the NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStolen bees can cross state borders without NSW DPI knowing,\u201d Kershaw told ABC, \u201cand they could cart varroa with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NSW police are encouraging anyone with information on this latest bee heist, or anyone with potentially relevant dashcam or mobile phone footage, to contact Crime Stoppers at 1800-333-000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"entry-content prose dark:prose-invert lg:prose-xl prose-science dark:prose-science\">\n<p>Have any of you seen 80 boxes of bees lying around? Mostly cream in color, with blue baseboards, blue-and-white lids, and red clear boards through which, perhaps, one might be able to glimpse some honeybees or honeycombs.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this an all-points bulletin: Police with the rural crime prevention team in the Australian state of New South Wales are on the lookout for an estimated $150,000 worth of missing beehives, presumed stolen. The bees disappeared from a property in the high-elevation agricultural region of the state\u2019s northern tablelands, about 9.32 miles (15 kilometers) west of the village of Bonshaw, along Bruxner Way, and 62.14 miles (100 km) northwest of the town of Glen Innes. NSW police believe this apparently daring heist (bees can sting) would most likely have been executed sometime between Tuesday March 31 and Wednesday May 6, 2026.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote text-center\">\u201cThe only people that steal bees are beekeepers. Like, no one else goes in and steals any hives of bees\u2026 What else are you going to do with them unless you\u2019re a beekeeper?\u201d<\/aside>\n<p>One local apiarist who spoke to The Guardian, Mitch McLennan at The Honey Shed in the nearby village of Tabulam, described the alleged crime as likely a \u201cdevastating\u201d loss for the bees\u2019 owner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s terrible, it\u2019s such a big loss,\u201d McLennan told the British newspaper\u2014adding that such crimes have \u201cbecome quite commonplace now\u201d as many desperate beekeepers struggle with the economic toll of hives ravaged by the invasive <em>Varroa destructor<\/em> species of mite.<\/p>\n<h2>The usual suspects<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThe only people that steal bees are beekeepers,\u201d according to McLennan. \u201cLike, no one else goes in and steals any hives of bees\u2026 What else are you going to do with them unless you\u2019re a beekeeper?\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2000755849\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2000755849\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2000755849\" src=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/05\/NSW-Police-Missing-Beehives-Missing-253x336.jpeg\" alt=\"Nsw Police Missing Beehives Missing\" width=\"253\" height=\"336\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2000755849\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u00a9 NSW Police Force Rural Crime Prevention Team, via Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Farmland across the world has seen a rise in apiary burglaries over the past decade. Over 10,000 hives were reported stolen in California during this period, for example, estimated at $3.5 million in lost profits, according to a white paper put out by the California State Beekeepers Association in 2025. Hive thefts have \u201cescalated\u201d\u2014as the paper\u2019s author, University of California, Davis entomologist Elina L. Ni\u00f1o, noted\u2014\u201cparticularly during almond pollination when hive rental prices peak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThieves may place stolen hives under fraudulent pollination contracts, collect payments, and abandon the colonies,\u201d Ni\u00f1o wrote.<\/p>\n<p>After a messy smash-and-grab looted beehives from an apiarist\u2019s boxes in NSW\u2019s Benandarah State Forest back in 2023, local Australian beekeeper groups advised that their members start deploying GPS trackers and CCTV cameras to protect their colonies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou put a microchip inside the beehive and the signal can be picked up by your mobile phone,\u201d Laurie Kershaw, a branch president with the NSW Apiarists\u2019 Association, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and \u201cif that beehive moves, say, 6 or 7 inches from its location, you can see that someone\u2019s even tampering with your bees.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Curse of the \u2018werewolf\u2019 bee parasite<\/h2>\n<p>The spooky-sounding parasitic mite <em>Varroa destructor<\/em> first began leaping from its native host, the Asian honey bee or <em>Apis cerana<\/em>, into hives across Europe and the Americas during the 1970s and 80s. For decades, scientists had initially likened the mite to a blood-sucking vampire until research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, discovered that the mite actually lives off the fat of honeybees.<\/p>\n<p>As USDA entomologist Samuel Ramsey rather vividly put it to Science News in 2019, the <em>Varroa destructor<\/em> \u201cis feeding on flesh more like a werewolf.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2000755736\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2000755736\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2000755736\" src=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Female-Varroa-destructor-bee.jpg\" alt=\"Varroa Destructor\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1285\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2000755736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Above, a female Varroa destructor on the head of a bee nymph. Credit: Gilles San Martin via Wikimedia Commons, CC 2.0 license<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Biologists have come to view the mites as a \u201cmajor driver of honeybee declines worldwide,\u201d but this stress on beekeepers (and inducement to bee theft) appears to be creating a destructive feedback loop. According to Kershaw, the blackmarket movement of purloined hives risks exacerbating the damage done by the parasite, given that criminals would likely want to avoid exposing themselves via the routine mandatory inspections conducted by the NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStolen bees can cross state borders without NSW DPI knowing,\u201d Kershaw told ABC, \u201cand they could cart varroa with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NSW police are encouraging anyone with information on this latest bee heist, or anyone with potentially relevant dashcam or mobile phone footage, to contact Crime Stoppers at 1800-333-000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/police-looking-for-jerks-who-allegedly-stole-150000-worth-of-beehives-2000755716&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/05\/NSW-Police-Stolen-Beehives-1200&#215;675.jpeg&#8221;] Have any of you seen 80 boxes of bees lying around? Mostly cream in color, with blue baseboards, blue-and-white lids, and red clear boards through which, perhaps, one might be able to glimpse some honeybees or honeycombs. Consider this an all-points bulletin: Police with the rural crime prevention team in the Australian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,53],"class_list":["post-1925255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-gizmodo-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1925255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1925255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1925255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1925255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}