
Beekeepers hit hard by thefts of hives - gscott
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/bee-thieves-cost-beekeepers-thousands/
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mothsonasloth
What about a radioactive tracer, that is sprayed on the bees, you can make the
tracers fairly unique and then if there is a dispute the tracer can be
analysed from a bee?

Also a Vice news article with Buzz Landon and Officer Freeman busting a bee
thief

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z7Te9mqO8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z7Te9mqO8o)

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supernova87a
California already makes you post warnings about the most miniscule
concentrations of, heaven forbid, "chemicals". You think this would be ok?
Much less, understood and accepted by uninformed consumers??

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lohszvu
I mean everything already has a cancer warning on it. Consumers just blow it
off.

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nathancahill
We keep bees at our farm Guatemala. Once every couple months our hives are
raided. We've set up motion-activated lights and other deterrents but the fact
that hives are generally further removed from where people live makes them a
very easy target.

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toomuchtodo
Consider barbed wire around them, or even electrified fencing if you have
power nearby.

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tyingq
Would be interesting if you had an alarm that released the "alarm pheromone"
that makes honey bees angry.

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Phlarp
Sounds like a booby trap, which would carry some nasty liability here in the
states.

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throwaway846657
That is true, but they would have to prove that the bees were agitated because
of the pheromone and not because they were being stolen/handled incorrectly.
All while admitting they committed a crime of course.

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hahla
Wonder if it would be economical to put a gps tracker at the bottom of every
hive box.

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bagacrap
Article says they cost $180 each which is about 18% of the value of hive. Not
many security systems I can think of that are that expensive relative to what
they're securing.

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lostlogin
I was wondering about those valuations. $1000 per hive is a lot. A top
condition Manuka hive here in New Zealand wouldn’t get particularly close to
half that.

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cjslep
In Switzerland you can buy a box and a starter wild bee population, let them
multiply for the year, and then return them. Farmers then in turn purchase
these wild bees from the company.

Repeat.

[https://wildbieneundpartner.ch/patenschaft/](https://wildbieneundpartner.ch/patenschaft/)

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intpbro
"Half the Rakkars’ 2,000 acres are planted with almonds, and the rest with a
mix of pistachios and raisins."

I thought raisins were dried grapes... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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jessriedel
Presumably those planted grapes are predestined to become raisins, with
different growing and harvesting techniques than grapes used for other
purposes, so it's not too unreasonable to refer to them by a name that encodes
that info. Would be interested to hear from a raisin/grape farmer, though.

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grey413
There are specific varieties of grape that are grown to be turned into
varieties of raisins.

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dbielik
Related: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-26/how-to-
st...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-26/how-to-
steal-50-million-bees)

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phaemon
Hit hard? Surely "stung"...

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hnlmorg
That pun is used later on in the article as one of the sub-headings

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lostlogin
It’s an industry requirement unfortunately. Bad puns, cute bee cartoons,
hexagons and extra ‘z’s all over the place.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Ecological collapse in action.

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LanceH
I feel like someone who steals crops is a thief. Someone who steals the seeds
is in some other category that I can't quite place. People stealing bees are
in this group.

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soulofmischief
I don't mind stealing bread from the mouths of decadence. But we don't get
that decadence without seeds...

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tcskeptic
*mouths of decadence

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soulofmischief
Crap. Well my comment is much less clever now. Thank you.

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no_identd
Uh... So uh... I just this moment saw this (and NOT that) over on reddit,
posted 23 hours ago:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/bk9pp9/til_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/bk9pp9/til_the_larger_a_bee_hive_grows_the_more/)

"TIL the larger a bee hive grows, the more efficient it becomes. A hive
containing 30,000 bees produces 150% more honey than two hives of 15,000."

However, removed as "inaccurate".

Edit:

Points back to this article here, dated April 18, 2013:
[http://www.groworganic.com/organic-
gardening/articles/meet-t...](http://www.groworganic.com/organic-
gardening/articles/meet-the-three-kinds-of-honey-bees-in-a-bee-hive)

Edit 2: Reddit comments seem worth reading; but to me it would seem advisable
to sort the comments by "New".

