Damage to Spryfield beehives 'truly heartbreaking' for group

A non-profit group inSpryfield, N.S., has lost tens of thousands of bees and its community garden was damaged in an apparentact ofvandalism over the weekend.

Late Saturday,SimoneSpears of Family SOS wasdoing a hive check with her colleagues and discovered a year's worth of hard work destroyed.

She said it appears a basketball knocked over the hives Friday, exposing thousands of the insects to the elements during a heavy rainfall. Spearssaid most of the bees would have drownedovernight.

"We lost about 40,000 bees for sure and due to the rain, possibly 80,000 bees were killed," she said.

TheHoney With Heart community garden projecthad hoped to teach people in the areaabout beekeeping. The group set up three beehivesas part of an after-school program for youth.

After-schoolbeekeeping

"After seeing all the hard work of the community and the engagement of the youth, to find out that someone would take that away from them is truly heartbreaking," Simone said.

The youth had planned to harvest and sell the honey with proceeds going back into the program. Spears estimates they're now out the $2,000 that could have been raised, along with the cost of the repairing the hives.

'Upset and heartbroken'

Martina Redden is one of the youth who helps tend to the bees. She said shefound out about the damage on Facebook.

"I was very upset and heartbroken," she said Monday. "I was just trying to get into [beekeeping]."

The damage didn't stop with the hives. Spears said the culpritsuprooted plants and vandalized wooden plant boxes in the community garden as well.

The group has already repaired the boxes and replanted.

Surprise donation

News of the vandalism spread quickly across social media and support has been coming in from the local community.Someone even made a $500 donation to the project Monday.

It has helped the organization get things back on track quickly, said Spears.

Although it may be too late in the season to get new hives going, they'll take care of the one remaining hive and are making plans for next year.

"We're going to move forward. We want to see this project thrive. We're not letting this end for our youth, no matter what happens," she said.