Bee colony theft has been going on for some time ... hive theft is often reported on here - queen theft appears to be a fairly new (and questionable) practice. Thieves, generally, will want to be in and out quickly, stealing hives at night from locations that are reasonably accessible by a suitable vehicle. Whilst not wishing to sound too sceptical I'm trying to think what it would be like trying to find a queen, in the dark, in a big productive colony, how long will that take ? ... and where the benefit lies to the thief ? £40 resale value for a queen ... or if they are going to use them ... all the effort of starting up a new colony and growing it ?
If they have the bottle to steal a queen then I would have thought they would have more sense and would take the whole lot ! I'm afraid I'm with JBM ... sounds to me as though it's failing queens to me.
I do believe the reported 135 Hive thefts figures though. I know one beekeeper locally who lost 8 production colonies in one incident - thousands of pounds of lost bees and kit and even more from the lost honey harvest. I rather think the vast majority of hive thefts probably go unreported.
especially for for those of you who have lots of hives .
