CATCH THE BUZZ VANDALIZED HIVES, AGAIN

CATCH THE BUZZ

Felony Damage to Florida Bee Hives…Good Grief, When will these people Never learn?

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From the PalmBeachPost.com — As if beekeepers don't have enough worries with a mysterious bee hive disorder, a Loxahatchee beekeeper's hives have been destroyed - by human pests.

Mark McCoy of McCoy's Sunny South Apiaries is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of vandals who tore apart and trashed 140 wooden hives filled with bees west of Boynton Beach.

Thousands of healthy bees died in the rampage. Others were thrown into a nearby pond and drowned.

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"It's kind of sickening," McCoy said Monday. If the bees had not been destroyed, he said, they would have sold for $170 a hive, or they could have been leased to growers who need to pollinate crops for $150 each, bringing in as much as $23,800.

It's all the more distressing because McCoy's hives were healthy. Beekeepers nationwide continue to struggle with colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady that causes bees to abruptly leave their hives and never return. McCoy's hives has been spared, something he credits to being "a family-run business. We stay on top of things pretty hard."

Because his healthy bees are in demand, both McCoy's honey and pollination businesses are booming.

"We've sold more bees than ever in the last four years, about 5,000 hives, due to the need," he said.

Just last week, the McCoys sent three semi-truck loads of bees to California. They will be used to pollinate the almond crop. That's despite the fact that demand for bees in California is expected to be down this year, because of a drought-related shutdown of 248,000 acres of almond groves.

In Florida, the bees are rented to growers to pollinate crops such as cucumbers and watermelons. Last year, McCoy sent bees to Maine to work the blueberries. Also last year, the McCoy bees produced 850 55-gallon barrels of honey, and sales are up. "We have sold more bottled honey in the last six weeks than ever," McCoy said.

Vandalism is more a function of teenagers on a Friday night than someone wading into active bee hives, said Jerry Hayes, chief apiary inspector for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

More often, bee colonies - especially healthy colonies - are stolen than vandalized. "Stealing bee hives has increased as honeybee health issues have caused loss of these units of revenue called bee hives," Hayes said. "Vandalism is usually just for meanness and to impact someone in their wallet in an ugly way."

Less than a dozen cases of either are reported to authorities each year, Hayes said.

In McCoy's case, "They vandalized it and took nothing. It was either a beekeeper or somebody know knows about bees," he said: Anyone else would have been stung immediately and unable to continue wreaking havoc.

"We are going to be looking at whether he had any problems with people who wanted to hurt his business," said Palm Beach County deputy Terry Senecal, a member of the sheriff's agricultural crimes unit.

Because the damage to McCoy's hives is in excess of $12,000, the crime is a felony.

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This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping www.BeeCulture.com