Bellows Bees: The Mystery of the Moondance Bee-Napping

19 February 2015

A "wave" of bee-napping (or is it bee rustling?) struck Alberta, Canada in May of 2012. Moondance Honey owner Bill Termeer has, or had, about 3,000 colonies in Alberta. In May of 2012, his employees noticed some hives were missing. The final count came to 154 missing hives and about 3 million bees. The losses translate into cash – about $60,000.

According to Rodrigo Mendez of the Alberta Beekeepers Association, bears are usually the greatest danger to hives. Termeer himself is now adding parasites, diseases, and “winter kill” to the list. None of these are threatening Termeer’s own bees. Instead, he believes these threats have killed some of his neighbor’s bees. And some “neighbor” is helping himself or herself to some of Moondance’s honeybees and hives.

Honeybees don’t exactly hibernate during the winter, but do retire to their hives and live off of the hive’s stored food -- honey and pollen. Parasites, like the verroah mite can infect honeybees with disease. And disease can thrive and spread even in warm, but overly-damp, hives during the winter months. This can cause a lot of bee deaths. In fact, this is, often, the cause of what beekeepers call “winter kill.”

But, whatever the reason for this crime, the thief is not impulsive but, instead, a careful planner. Some of Termeer’s hives have been opened and the bees removed. Each hive must have one queen. But Termeer has discovered hive after hive with missing queens. And that is serious. Queens must be replaced if the hive is to survive. But queens and workers aren’t the only thing missing.

Someone has taken the “brood combs” out of his hives. Brood combs are where the queen lays her eggs and workers tend to, and nurture, young bees. The brood comb theft is especially elaborate because the thief actually opened the hive and removed the wooden frames in which the bees built the brood combs. Then, the bee-napper replaced the brood comb frames with “other” frames containing “starter” combs, but no brood.

The discovery of the strange frames was the final tip-off that this was a theft -- a well planned and careful one. Tremeer has made a video, “Bee Theft 001,” to demonstrate how this stealthier kind of theft looks.

We can only breathe a sigh of relief and be glad that bee-napping isn’t a major criminal industry. But wait, you'd better not hold your breath . . . .