Between December and March this year, prime pollinating season, 1,734 beehives were stolen from almond groves in California, the nation’s largest producer of the nuts. It is part of a troubling, and relatively new, criminal enterprise that has caught both growers and law enforcement by surprise.
Almond growers pay $200 (up from $130 in 2010) to rent a single hive, and it takes more than two million hives to pollinate California almonds. So the financial incentive for the thefts is clear. Some growers have begun placing GPS trackers in their hives and hiring overnight guards to discourage theft, NPR’s The Salt reported.
Beekeepers themselves are considered prime suspects, because they “have the knowledge and equipment to go in and take the hives and the market to profit from them,” Denise Qualls, a broker who arranges contracts between almond growers and beekeepers, told NPR.
Last week, a beekeeper was convicted of grand theft of an animal, a felony in California, for snatching 64 hives in Butte County and renting them to a grower in another county. He was sentenced to 90 days in county jail and three years’ probation.
“Thieves are going after easily accessible hives and unmarked hives,” Jay Freeman, a detective with the Butte County Sheriff’s Office said. “Someone who knows how to handle them can move 200 hives in a matter of minutes.”