Beekeepers all over the world have been struggling with colony collapse disorder for over a decade now. The significant decrease in global honey bee populations has been attributed to colony collapse disorder. This loss of honeybees has been a concern to entomologists, biologists and even economists. Obviously, if honey bees were to become extinct, humans would have a difficult time pollinating plants themselves. Theoretically, the continued existence of human life would become threatened if honey bees were to disappear from earth. This is why the beekeepers of the world have been under tremendous pressure to maintain honey bee population levels. The stress of modern beekeeping was already getting to Miami-Dade County beekeeper Wainsworth Brown, but when a thief began to steal his honey bees, Brown dedicated himself full-time to finding the perpetrator.
After finding several boxes containing thousands of bees missing from his property, country beekeeper Wainsworth Brown teamed up with the American Bee Project President Adam Locke in order to catch the thief who was stealing Brown’s bees. Brown and Locke planted a camera that overlooked Brown’s beekeeping operation. When Brown noticed more boxes missing from his property, he simply watched the video and waited for the guilty party to appear. Brown was surprised to learn that his boxes of bees were being stolen by a pillar of the community. The perpetrator turned out to be a local pastor named Yoel Torres.
Brown and Locke turned in footage to the police that showed Torres sneaking through a barbed wire fence in order to steal twenty five boxes of bees. Each box contained thousands of honey bees. The footage showed Torres in action on three different days. Torres was even decked-out in a full beekeeper uniform. Strangely enough, a couple of months prior to obtaining the video footage, Torres posted a picture of himself tending to a beehive along with a message that mentioned his “new hobby”. Torres was apprehended by police and charged with the crime of stealing thousands of bees.
Have you ever heard of insect collections, either living or dead, being stolen before?
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