Beekeepers, burglars and manuka honey

Noel Sweeney

The classic image of beekeepers as portrayed by painters is of a solitary folk engaged in quietly tending to their contented charges. Beekeepers are portrayed as people who are immersed in an activity that arouses their senses, so they can produce honey for the community. Beekeepers are seen to be caring, while willingly sharing their knowledge and passion with any curious neighbour and passing stranger.

Some bees are robbers and steal the honey from under the wings of unsuspecting bees. Though they know it happens, that kind of behaviour is an anathema to an honest beekeeper. For above all the one thing a beekeeper is richer in than honey - is honesty.

Burglars

While that may be one side of the common currency of the beekeeping fraternity, the other side of the coin is revealing and not quite so appealing. Some beekeepers now display that ugly grasping side of robber bees and practise avarice and indolence to steal honey from other industrious beekeepers.

A few examples will illustrate the burglars that now pose problems for the police and fellow beekeepers. Thieves are hijacking hives, then renting the bees and queens out to farmers to pollinate their crops. With the global collapse of the bee population from disease and the prevalent use of mass pesticide, the crime is becoming lucrative.

On the tiny island of Anglesey, off the coast of North Wales (UK), Felin Honeybees, a farm and education centre, was burgled twice in 2015. For many beekeepers including the owner Katie Hayward, the truth cannot be denied: the burglars are experienced and knowledgeable in the craft of beekeeping, so the risk to them of being stung is non-existent.

One million honey bees were stolen from Beekeeper Honey, a family-run UK business. This is thought to be the largest theft of its kind

Photo © Franc Sivic

Hayward explained that the bee burglars used a small nucleus box, held the frames over the box and shook the bees in. Nucleus boxes can be stored easily in a car boot. The burglars stole her prize bees that had been selectively bred by the Felin Centre for calmness, intended to be used for teaching and in therapy to help stop children from self-harming. Hayward said: “They knew exactly what they were taking. There’s been a huge surge in beekeeping as a hobby, and the demand for new nucleuses has risen by 75% in the last five years”.

Rustlers

Bees are an ideal target because a thief who is experienced in beekeeping is easily able to take control, transporting the bees at night along with their honey as ready-made contraband.

In 2017 burglars stole a mass of bees from colonies throughout California and targeted other areas in the USA and Canada. There have been multiple thefts all over the USA in the last three years. Pavel Tveretinov, a beekeeper from Sacremento, was arrested as he was suspected of targeting the almond orchards of Central Valley. Detectives investigating the case in 2017 charged Tveretinov with stealing more than 2,500 hives worth a million US dollars. Tveretinov allegedly used the stolen bees for pollination and then hid them on a plot of land in Fresno County. If he is convicted he could face ten years’ imprisonment.

Rustlers try to disguise their illicit goods. Andres Solis, a Fresno County Sheriff’s Detective, was alerted by a tip-off about the state of the hives. He said that most beekeepers make their hives distinctive, yet Tveretinov’s were not. They were scattered and different types were mixed together.

The police gained inside information from a fellow beekeeper who recognised Lloyd Cunniff’s hives at Tveretinov’s apiary. Cunniff, the owner of Beeline Honey, brought his hives to California to help pay back for the losses from colony collapse disorder that he suffered in 2016. Cunniff said that the thieves with flatbed trucks moved the hives from a site in northern California on 122 pallets. He estimated the loss of his bees to be over $400,000. Cunniff recovered 622 of his bee colonies and most of the pallets – these had been repainted and branded with the name of another beekeeping company.

Manuka

In 2016 in New Zealand there were 400 thefts in six months. The thieves have a ready market with an expanding trade in China whose citizens are lured by the false idea that manuka honey provides an aphrodisiac.

Bruce Robertson of the Haines Apiaries said, “There’s easy money to be made if you buy and sell hives.” Robertson has been the victim of serial thefts to the extent that two of his 3,000 hives are stolen every week. [See: Houston Chronicle: 17/2 17; The Times: 17/3/17]

Manuka honey has tripled in price since 2012 and is now worth about £180,000,000 to the New Zealand economy. It is worth even more to the thieves and their Chinese conspirators.

Thieves are stealing hives, then renting out the bees to farmers for pollination. This crime is becoming lucrative and incidences increasing

Photo © Franc Sivic

Future

The future does not look good for apiarists. The honest professional is likely to be a victim while the burglars choose greed over need.

Ged Marshall, Chairman of the British Bee Farmers Association, said: “The puzzling thing is how the thieves knew where the hives are to begin with. To find the site which is hidden away, you either must have been following someone for weeks or deliberately searching for the hives.”

In Kent (UK) the police have urged beekeepers to camouflage their hives - hide hives behind hedges or tall fences out of view of main roads and paint a muted colour - after a spate of thefts and arson attacks.

In February 2018 burglars stole 1,000,000 bees from Beekeeper Honey, a family-run business in Oxfordshire, UK. The police are still investigating the burglary which has resulted in what is thought to be the largest theft of its kind.

Bee thefts this year have reached a record level in Spain. As the profits grow, so does the nefarious conduct of the criminals with unscrupulous farmers paying gangs to steal their competitors’ hives. [See: The Times: 22/5/18] It has become an industry in itself¨ as crimes continue to soar, the profits to be made from illicit pollination enables the burglars to live in mansions.

This is an abridged edition of the article The feted Bee-keeper who stole the soul of a Stranger available on the Bees for Development website

Nöel Sweeney is a practising British barrister specialising in criminal law and human rights, as well as animal law. He is the author of Bees-at-law reviewed in BfDJ 125