At 06:37 AM 9/16/97 -0400, you wrote:
>C.F wrote
>
>>OK I just had a full healthy colony stolen...
>>
>>Normally I try to keep hives on farm property where you have to at least
>>drive through a gate and past the owner's home to get to the beeyard. So I
>>have never had any theft problems until now. What are other steps that I can
>>use to discourage bee  rustlers? Is branding of equipment a deterent? One
>>colony is not so bad, but how big is this problem nationwide anyway?
>>
>>Cesar Flores
>>Colorado
 
Dear Cesar,
  Lets face, if someone wants your bees bad enough, they are probably going
to take them.  I was a commercial Queen producer for 8 years and I have
come up with a few tricks to make the "would be thief" regret stealing my
bees.  #1. Do not staple your bottom boards to the hive bodies. #2. Drill
a whole the size of a quarter in the middle of your bottom boards.
#3. Nail down your bottom boards to you hive stand. I use poles for my stands
that way it makes it impracticle to pick the entire stand up.
  I know it might seem like a lot of extra work, but people are like bees
in that if they rob you once, at sometime they'll be back.
  I had your problem for a while, but when I did the above, I went to my yard
a found a colony 100 ft. away from the stand. Apparently the would be thief,
closed the front entrance at night, removed the nails in my bottom board, but
neglected the check for any holes. Well, needless to say that after all that
jostling around my bees where upset and came through the bottom whole and let
him have it!
 
Jeff Barnett