Beekeepers feel rustlers’ sting
When bee rustlers strike, commercial beekeepers feel the sting
Beekeeper Randy Verhoek makes his living renting bee colonies to farmers around the country whose crops need a boost from the mighty pollinators. Recently, someone stole 300 hives — $90,000 worth — that Verhoek had tucked away in a pasture in Manvel.
Outside the bee-keeping business, it’s the sort of heist that begs the question: Why? Why steal bees?
The answer is complicated. It involves the economics of beekeeping, the precarious lives of honeybees, the beekeeping community and, of course, California.
Verhoek, who lives in Danbury, had rented the land in Manvel where the three wooden boxes, painted white and branded “HHI,” were packed up on a truck and stolen sometime in mid-December. Hives are often placed in out-of-the-way areas, so thefts can go undetected.
“They could be anywhere,” Verhoek said. “They could be 50
miles from here, or in another state.”
Many beekeepers say bee thievery, especially in Texas, is more of a nagging problem than a growing one, but it does happen. Texas is the sixth-largest honeyproducing state, with an output of more than 9 million pounds in 2014. (North Dakota is far and away the largest honey producer.)
Some in the state’s bee community don’t even want to discuss hive theft for fear of encouraging the crime.
If it’s going to happen, it will probably be this time of year. The reason is almonds. Some 80 percent of the world’s almonds are grown in California’s Central Valley on one million acres. Almond trees have to be pollinated by bees, and each acre of almond grove requires two hives. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that commercial beekeepers own about three million colonies, so the math is clear: At least two-thirds of the commercial hives in the U.S. have to be trucked to California every February, to be rented out for a few weeks at rates up to $200 a colony.
“If you own a big truck and a forklift, it’s easy to get 10 pallets and then take off,” says Kim Flottum, the editor of Bee Culture magazine and a 45-year beekeeper. A pallet holds four hives.
Bee theft isn’t for the uninitiated. “To steal bees, you’ve got to know bees,” Flottum says. “It’s people familiar with the bee business — I’m not going to say beekeepers.”
Al Ford sells insurance to beekeepers through Texas Insurance & Financial Services, out of the Georgetown office. He can sell a policy that will cover the physical hives, but not the bees or the honey, if it hasn’t been extracted yet. “With disease and colony collapse disorder and cold weather, it’s hard to put a value on the bees throughout the year,” he says.
That means that someone like Verhoek can’t recoup the loss from a theft, even with insurance. (Verhoek says he had no insurance.)
This is especially rough on beekeepers. “Think of it as like killing a pregnant cow,” Flottum says. “You lose the cow, the calf and the milk.”
Bee thieves take advantage of a gamble some almond growers take, says Chris Moore, a beekeeper from Kountze and president of the Texas Beekeepers Association. Many growers will sign contracts in advance with bee providers, but some bet that they can get bees at a lower price if they don’t.
This, Moore says, plays into the thieves’ hands. In California, they can pick up a batch of illgotten hives, drive down the road and rent them at a cut rate to another grower. Once they get the money, they may simply leave the hives and never return.
Chris Hiatt, a beekeeper from Washington state who has been the victim of rustling, says law enforcement has a hard time handling such cases owing to lack of experience. In his case, the thief — an older beekeeper, he says — was caught, but also got only “a slap on the wrist” as punishment. (Flottum says the California Beekeepers Association is “very vigilant.”)
Theft is only one of the problems facing commercial beekeepers today, Moore says. Thirty years ago, a keeper could expect to lose 10 percent of bees each year. By 1999, it was 20 percent. Now it’s more like 40 to 45 percent, he says.
When Moore started his business, he made his money by selling honey. But the influx of cheap imported honey — it’s a global product — threw off the economics, he says. Starting in 2011, Moore has made more money from renting out his bees for pollinating. “The dynamics have changed,” he says. “Every year you have to do more pollinating to make a living, and you have to make multiple incomes off the same hives.”
Moore sends hives to the almond groves in February, then brings them back to produce honey until mid-June, when Texas flowers dry up. They then go to West Texas to pollinate watermelons and Wisconsin for the cranberries. “The bees are on a truck crossing state lines a half-dozen times a year,” Moore says.
Bee colonies have been moved for thousands of years, but not to this extent. In every new venue, the bees may be exposed to fungicides or pesticides, not to mention other bees who may be diseased.
This leads to sick, stressed, exhausted bees who are more likely to die. Moore, who calls himself his own bee veterinarian, now has to feed his bees protein through the winter so the queen will continue to make eggs and replenish the colony.
(Not all beekeepers use this model: Moore said he sees growing interest in bees from non-commercial, smallbatch honey producers. Texas alone has 40 local clubs. “These smallscale beekeepers are not stressing out their bees,” he says.)
In addition, those weakened bees find themselves subject to the same issue as other species: loss of habitat. Sprawl, Moore said, has shrunk wild spaces and made competition for acreage more intense.
Hives must be placed in isolated areas, which makes bee theft nightmarishly difficult to prevent. You can’t, after all, brand a bee. Some, like Verhoek, brand the hives.
Flossum says others paint their hives odd colors or put special markers inside. Others put expensive GPS trackers on the pallets. Some almond growers hire guards.
Security cameras are a possibility, but Moore knows of a case where the rustler cut down the tree where the camera was placed and stole the camera.
Verhoek remains mystified by his loss. He’d like to tell the rustler what’s on his mind. “My question is: why? Why did you feel the need to steal from me and my family?”