Hive thefts put Quebec beekeepers on high alert

The secondbeehive heist in as many monthshas put Quebec beekeepers on edgeand has them considering extra security measures.

Thirty hives were stolenSunday from theMielsD'Anicetapiaryin the UpperLaurentians town ofFerme-Neuve.

Beekeeper Anne-VirginieSchmidt said the incident has everyone concerned.

"All beekeepers in Quebec are now afraid of being robbed," Schmidt said in an interview.

"We thought we were protected here [in Quebec]. Now we'll have to put some GPS, some cameras. It's a lot of workand more money."

Schmidt said she's heard of such theftshappening in Europe and in the United States, but not in Quebec until this year.

The theft follows anotherincident at the end of April in which180 hives were stolen from a beekeeper in Saint-Valre, in the Eastern Townships.

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Police later arrested a man from the Laurentians in connection with that theft, but the hives have not beenrecovered.

In Schmidt's case, police are now looking into reports of a blue truck that was spotted by locals carrying hives on Sunday.

Stolen coloniesunlikely to survive

Schmidt isn't confident the hives will be found. If they are, she doubts the colonies will survive a fact that hits the beekeeper hard.

"We're attachedto our bees, you know.Our beesare like our animals.We go to see them every week, and we look at them and make sure they're healthy. It's like someone going onto a farm and stealing 30 cows."

The growing popularity of beekeeping is leading many to try their hand at the business, and she thinks that might explain the recent hive thefts in Quebec.

"Some want to go fast, and they don't have the money," she said.

"They think this will be easier."

Lost research

Rebuilding the stolencolonies will take time and cost money, but it shouldn't affect production too badly atMielsD'Anicet, which owns 1,500 hives.

In another way, however, the loss may be hard to estimate.

Four of the stolen hives were part of a Laval University-led research project looking into the recent upswing in bee deaths in Canada and internationally.

"This is really bad because it was for all the industry," Schmidtsaid.

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