This message was from ANDY NACHBAUR to ALL
originally in conference WN-BEENET on WILDBEES (WILD BEE'S BBS)
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Hi All,
 
    Most of you don't know and may not want to know. Last winter the
members of the California State Beekeepers Association found out that
they had lost their life's saving, $80,000.00+- because of the
dishonesty of a trusted long time elected secretary of the association.
The money is gone, and in my opinion should have never been there, but
thats not the end of the story. Now the local DA has not and does not
seem inclined to prosecute the person responsible even with the support
of persons appointed by the association to do so.
 
    1994 may well set a new high or low in beekeeper crimes depending on
how you view this sort of beekeeping activity. In the last 40 years that
I have been involved with keeping bees, only one person has done hard
time for bee thefts in California, and that was only because the thief
had the gall to steal the truck and forklift to do the job with.
 
    He has been free to take up from where he left off, and this season
he rented some bees to a almond grower, and then stole them out of
another almond orchard, also managed by the same grower to fill his
contract and collect his money. This time the beekeepers missed their
bees and were able to recover them and return them to the orchards they
were removed from. The almond grower paid twice for the same bees and
had to find more to replace the ones that were stolen back by the
original owners.
 
    With 800,000 hives of bees in California for the almonds it is to
be expected that some will get lost, what is hard to understand as to
why their is a little done to punish the thieves when caught. Having
worked with the local county police on several bee thief cases I do
understand some of the problem with the location and recovery of stolen
bees. At the time one of the cases I worked on, one resulted in the
biggest recovery of stolen bees to that date. The thief was passed
through the judicial system and put on a work furlough program and
worked for his dad. In another case the thief spent one night in the
slammer, only because of the timing of his arrest. The beekeepers
involved, including me, did recover a few of the hives, but never could
get the honey, in drums, the thief extracted from them. In this case I
did not know that any of my hives were involved until one of the other
victims reported it to me. Part of my hives were stolen the 2nd time
before I could recover them the next day.<G>
 
    In todays society the stealing of another's property is given very
low priority. This is compounded with bees because law enforcement people
can not understand that theft of beehives do NOT indicate a secondary
market for stolen bees as with most other stolen property does. Only
beekeepers steal bees which have little value to others. One of the
unsatisfactory solution to this problem is to stop ALL trucks loaded
with bees and require proof of ownership. This is not a viable plan
as bees are moved at night or early morning hours when the majority of
law enforcement people have better things to do with their time.<Zzzzz>
 
                        ttul Andy-