Honeybees thieves hit Eastern Ontario

Humans have a tendency to presume that everyone like yourself, who likes the same sports team or has the same interests, is good or should be trusted. Beekeepers, doubly so.

Unfortunately, some beekeepers proved just how unworthy they are of that trust this week when they cleaned out an apiary of a dear friend of ours:

It was a professional heist. The culprits — and it must have been multiple perpetrators — definitely had a carefully-orchestrated plot. No one steals 10 colonies of angry bees, in the dark, on a whim.   And not just the hives, some weighing as much as 200 pounds, but 16 other containers of bees as…

Debbie Hutchings’ family has kept bees near Portland, Ontario, since 1848 and she produces some of the best bees around. Somebody apparently knew that and decided to help themselves to 10 full colonies and 16 nucleus hives Wednesday evening.

If anyone hears of any “Hutchings bees” available that aren’t coming directly from Debbie, please let us know and we’ll put you in touch with her. She’s not optimistic that they’ll be found and this is a huge setback for her operation.

Source: The great bee heist: ‘These people knew what they were doing’ | Ottawa Citizen

Comments 1

  1. very sorry to hear about your loss i found you site as i was searching my wife’s Debbie clement/hutchings family tree i found you are related to my wife Bruce clement

Leave a Reply