And finally… unbeelievable

Due to an increased demand for honeybees for pollination, Mr Mike Potts, owner of Pottsy’s Pollination in Oregon, transported 400 hives of his bees on trucks to California last month. After unloading them to a holding area just outside Yuba City, he returned a few days later to find 92 hives had been stolen.

The incident is the latest in a series of beehive thefts, usually committed at night using forklifts and trucks. Hives are regularly split open or dismantled, interventions that can kill tens of thousands of the kidnapped bees.

The problem has become severe enough in California that certain police officers now specialize in hive crime.

The centre of beehive thefts is California’s Central Valley, an area of agricultural land responsible for about a quarter of all the produce grown in the US. This output – of lettuce, grapes, lemons, apricots and more – requires pollination from far more bees than naturally live in the area.

Detailing the crime, Mr Potts said: “I pulled in the yard and noticed that there was some stuff missing. I’ve heard that there had been some stealing but didn’t think it would happen to me. It’s frustrating because it’s getting harder and harder to keep bees alive. And then you transport them down and they just get taken.”

Mr Potts estimated that the theft of the hives cost him $44,000, The Guardian reports.