Skidbrooke beekeeper quits after 'professional' thieves strike again

Guy Williams believes professional thieves used a drone to find his beehives and steal his bees

A Lincolnshire beekeeper has quit his hives for good after being repeatedly targeted by professional bee thieves.

Guy Williams, from Skidbrooke, said he had finally left beekeeping after 20 years when bees were stolen from his property for the fifth time.

Mr Williams said he believed the thieves were professionals as they took only the bees in their brood boxes, rather than the whole hive.

He said it was "very depressing", but the thefts made his business unviable.

Mr Williams, 60, said he had been farming bees on a commercial scale for around 15 years before he was first targeted by the thieves.

He said while many amateurs kept more docile types of bee, he bred a strain of English bees "with attitude", adding that they "worked a lot harder and produced a lot more honey".

At the time of the first theft, he said he went to check on two of his apiaries and found the brood boxes, which contained the queens, were missing.

"It was obvious they were beekeepers who had taken them because they knew what they were doing," Mr Williams said.

"They weren't interested in taking the hive or any of the equipment, they were only interested in stealing the bees."

Mr Williams said this was followed by four more thefts and he believed the thieves must have lived more than three miles away or the bees would instinctively have flown back to their hives in Skidbrooke.

Hives of honey bees can be worth hundreds of pounds, according to the British Beekeepers Association

"When it happened a second year, it was very depressing because that season we didn't make any money from honey," he said.

"We were just busy fools breeding bees to replace the ones that were being stolen.

"By the end of the third year, we decided to cut our losses and we sold everything: the remaining bees, the hives, all of the equipment, even the honey jars."

Mr Williams, who said he had reported the first theft to police, said he now believed the thieves had used a drone to find the hives as they were not visible from the road or a nearby track.

"I love the bees, I like dealing with the honey, everything about it. I enjoyed every part, even making the hives," he said.

"It took us years to build up to the scale we were on, I couldn't afford to start again now."

Lincolnshire Police confirmed it had received a report of a bee theft in the Skidbrooke area in 2018.

But a force spokesperson said that despite initial inquiries, "unfortunately there were no further lines of investigation for us to pursue".

Diane Drinkwater, chair of The British Beekeepers Association, said thefts and vandalism of beehives were not uncommon.

"We encourage people to mark their equipment if possible and to be aware of where they place their hives, so they are not too visible to the public," she said.

"But it varies, as quite often it's the bees that have the value, more than the kit."

The cost of bees varied depending on the time of year, but during the spring they could be worth several hundred pounds, Ms Drinkwater added.