back to article Un-bee-lievable: Two million Swedish bugs stolen in huge sting

Bee thieves have created a buzz in Sweden after two million Apis mellifera were stolen – in what appears to be among the largest stings of its kind in Europe. Bees surround queen bee Oh honey! Oxfordshire abuzz with reports of a MEEELLION bees stolen READ MORE According to the Skånska Dagbladet paper, robbers pinched 50 …

  1. Locky

    You asked for miracles

    I bring you the F Bee I

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: You asked for miracles

      Beehave yourself!

      1. JassMan

        Re: You asked for miracles

        The thief must be absolutely beestly to commit this robbery in such an unbeecoming manner.The victim is probably beeside himself with worry.

    2. TheVogon

      Re: You asked for miracles

      No money, no honey?

      https://youtu.be/eulSdeHxmLw

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Sgt_Oddball
    Coat

    why don't...

    The police start organising oame sort of sting operation... maybe bug the hives? Or even multiple bugs, say in some kind of cluster or swarm?

    Hopefully this all might help to smoke out these pests.....

    Mine's the one with the fetching net hat...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      GPS

      I was just thinking the same thing. Put a small GPS receiver / cellular transmitter in the box before the bees are introduced to make their hive. The bee rustlers aren't going to tear apart the hives looking for that, and it would only need to activate once per day so a tiny battery would last pretty much forever.

      Then you just pull up the Find My Bees app on your phone and tell the cops where to go!

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: GPS

        They are on the market. Look up "Beehive GPS" in your .fav search engine. Personally, I see no real need ... but a couple of my more urban bee keeping friends use them. Not certain if that's because theft is more common in urban areas, or because urbanites are more susceptible to marketing.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Poor guy

    "I'm angry and sad. The same kind of sadness as when you have to put down your dog."

    Is there anything more Swedish than trying to quantify the exact type of sadness? Hope he gets his apian pals back.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Poor guy

      Strangely enough, each and every hive has it's own personality. In a way they really are like pets. Keeping bees is a fun and profitable hobby, and fairly inexpensive to get into. Might want to try it.

      1. Grikath
        Pint

        Re: Poor guy

        Jake has a point..

        Also.. 1000 liters ( ?! used to honey being expressed in weight..) of good quality honey translates to hmmm... 1300 kg average.... multiply by 5, allow for losses...

        That's roughly 6000 liters of mead lost to our thirsty throats!!! *weeps*

        Icon because...

        1. Fungus Bob
          Coat

          Re: Poor guy

          So... Metric bees and not Imperial then...

          Mine's the one with the nize hat

          http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Gilgamesh_Nice_Hat.jpg

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Police are looking for someone covered in yellow fur wearing a red top and goes by the name of Pooh.

    1. Aladdin Sane
      Coat

      Sounds like he's a bit of a shit.

  6. Tigra 07
    Pint

    Won't take long to find the miscreant...

    Police are apparently hunting for a red lumpy man with a van?

    1. Jay Lenovo

      Re: Won't take long to find the miscreant...

      The only way bring down bee crime is with a thorough sting operation. Unless you hive a better idea.

  7. Oliver Mayes

    You had a chance to use "Cops honeycomb the area" in the subheading, but you blew it.

    1. Andytug

      And

      "bumbling cops"

  8. Blockchain commentard

    As a techie site, I'm surprised no one's suggested setting a honeypot trap for the criminals.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Or tried using a drone to find it

  9. VeganVegan
    Unhappy

    Also very much missing,

    And missed: Samantha Bee.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Also very much missing,

      She'd have told you to buzz off by now

    2. jake Silver badge

      Re: Also very much missing,

      ITYM Sarah Bee. Samantha also likes to give people hives, but she's a completely different person.

  10. FlossyThePig

    Whatever happened to...

    Eric the Half a Bee?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bee careful

    Clearly this is the work of a new super-villain. The question is he/she hoarding bees for a nefarious purpose, or eliminating bees for some other ends? Tune in next week for the exciting continuation!

  12. Cynic_999

    Maybe they weren't stolen

    They just went on strike demanding more honey and shorter flowers.

  13. Daniel von Asmuth
    IT Angle

    Two million bugs?

    I wrote programs with more bugs than that!

    1. Oengus

      Re: Two million bugs?

      Its called Windows.

  14. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Used to be a day in the strife on the Balkans 10 years ago.

    Prior to switching to the horsebeef trade the local "national minority"'s two favorite pastimes were illegal logging and beehive theft.

    There was a point ~ 2004-2008 when you had to "allocate" a mountain sheepdog per 2-3 hives just to have a chance to find them there the next morning. By the way - real sheepdog. An Anatolian, Caucasian or Bulgarian Karakachan sheepdog is not a harmless border collie. It is something that can take on a bear or Chechen raider 1:1 and win. It was bred for that.

    I am not sure I have heard of a theft as big as 50 anywhere on the Balkans, simply because it is very rare for someone to keep 50 in one location. A theft of 15-20 (which is the usual you have in one place) was a regular occurrence.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Used to be a day in the strife on the Balkans 10 years ago.

      Here in the USA, beekeepers are a fairly close-knit community. Anybody suddenly "acquiring" 10+ populated & producing hives would be a rather remarkable occurrence. I had half a dozen hives stolen a couple years ago. I put the word out, and two mornings later a guy from Woodland (~60 miles away) called me with a lead. I had my hives back that evening, with the perp in jail.

      Hint: Serialize all capital equipment. I also use a brand with my logo (on the wood, not the bees!) ... and I know what colo(u)r I use to mark each queen. Logo+numbers+queen's dot colo(u)r was good enough for the Yolo County Sheriff to allow me to take custody ... he only had me open one of the hives, I wonder why.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: Used to be a day in the strife on the Balkans 10 years ago.

        Hint: Serialize all capital equipment.

        Does not help. As I said - the "national minority". The one that is common across most of this part of Europe forming anything between 7 and 11% of the population. It is not all of them by the way. In fact it is a very small fraction which gives all of them a bad name. To be more specific - they have "family trades" and there are clans which live of nothing but petty theft - it is the familial trade.

        The stolen bees were killed outright, honey harvested and sold on the closest market and the hives burned. There was absolutely no intention of keeping them and absolutely no traces.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Unsurprising, but disappointing.

          Mind-bogglingly wasteful.

          Psycopathic criminality and entirely parasitical existence.

          I'd probably better say no more.

      2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

        Re: Used to be a day in the strife on the Balkans 10 years ago.

        @jake

        Logo+numbers+queen's dot colo(u)r

        BarBee Code Reader!

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Used to be a day in the strife on the Balkans 10 years ago.

          I have one of those. It's called the Mk I Eyeball. Sadly, even in the current deplorable state of the USPTO's process, I don't think I can get a patent or trademark on it as there is a ton of prior art ... and even if I did, Apple would sue me. It has rounded corners.

      3. TheVogon

        Re: Used to be a day in the strife on the Balkans 10 years ago.

        "Here in the USA, beekeepers are a fairly close-knit community. Anybody suddenly "acquiring" 10+ populated & producing hives would be a rather remarkable occurrence."

        It's also a rather large country and there must be plenty of buying and selling of hives that would potentially explain such an occurrence, and there must also be lots of remote locations where such could be delivered without even being noticed let alone raising any suspicions.

      4. Anonymous Cow Herder

        Re: Used to be a day in the strife on the Balkans 10 years ago.

        Jake, I'm glad you got your bees back. Have an up-vote for the international version of colo(u)r, it made me laugh

  15. Zwuramunga

    Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

    To bee, or not to bee: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

      A whoreson mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...start following the honey"

    Mightn't be a bad idea. Would the honey already collected from a particular stolen hive be distinctive enough to test against honey being sold cheap in the local market?

    1. JassMan

      Re: "...start following the honey"

      Since honey is just bug vomit, there should be a good chance of collecting DNA from it. Since all the bees in an individual hive are closely related the DNA should be a reasonable fingerprint. The trouble is that honey is never sold from a single hive but mixed with that from all the hives from a given location before dispensing into jars. Don't forget that the story states that 50 hives were stolen so the DNA would be well mixed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "...start following the honey"

        Hmmm, hadn't thought of the honey being mixed. Ah well, it was just a thought.

  17. x 7

    Bees are not bugs

    completely different class of insect

    1. Alphebatical
      Facepalm

      A bee's a bug. A spider's a bug. A roly-poly's a bug. The word "bug" is generic, the idiots who insist "true bug" makes any sense be damned.

  18. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

    Swedish Pop Songs

    Honey, Honey

    Dancing Queen Bee

    The WinnerThief Takes It All

    One of UsTwo Million of Us

    Does Your Mother Know (who stole the bees)

    Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Bee After Midnight)

    (Hives) Under Attack

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Swedish Pop Songs

      The buzz has it those are all dreadful. No flow, they drone on and on.

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Swedish Pop Songs

        @jake

        No flow, they drone on and on.

        and on...

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyxBYbfu6k8

        1. jake Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Swedish Pop Songs

          If you have to explain it ... :-)

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