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вЂњStealing one or 10 or 100 hives would result in the same charge,вЂќ he said. But the theft of any agricultural product worth at least $250 is considered a felony. Under California law, theft of property worth $950 or less is classified as a misdemeanor. To raise the crimeвЂ™s severity, Freeman worked with prosecutors in 2016 to charge a man accused of stealing 64 beehives with theft of livestock. The clear liquid is visible only under UV light, even through layers of paint, so police can ascertain the rightful owner even when thieves try to disguise boxes. He said some beekeepers have tried tagging their boxes with SmartWater CSI, a forensic tool used to help police trace recovered stolen property. To help her clients track their investments, Qualls merged her business with tech startup Bee Hero to equip hive boxes with a GPS-enabled sensor.ДЇreeman, who got into beekeeping after investigating his first hive theft, said he advises beekeepers to use security cameras and put their names and phone numbers on the boxes. вЂњThe grower is just as responsible when they accept them,вЂќ she said.

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We do all the health checks, which is labor intensive, and we pay our workers full benefits,вЂќ Tauzer said.Дenise Qualls, a pollination broker who connects beekeepers with growers, suspects the thefts are happening because beekeepers canвЂ™t provide the strong colonies they promised, вЂњso they can get the money from the grower and then they leave the hives.вЂќ вЂњFor every $210 paid to rent a beehive, we put close to that much into it the whole year feeding the bees because of drought. Beekeepers had to artificially supplement their diet with sugar solutions and pollen substitutes - and incur more costs.ДЇor beekeepers, the loss of a hive means the loss of income from honey production and future pollination, not to mention the expense of managing the hive throughout the year. The lack of rain ravaged wildflowers that provide the nectar that bees turn into honey. The drought that gripped Western states last summer also weakened colonies. вЂњWhat that means is that beekeepers are coming from as far as New York and Florida, and to get them to come all that way, pollinator fees have to rise,вЂќ said Brittney Goodrich, an agriculture economist at the University of California at Davis.Д«ut bee populations are notoriously unstable due to a host of problems, including disease, loss of habitat and insecticides. This year, a survey of commercial beekeepers estimated it will take 90% of honeybee colonies in the U.S. Accordingly, the amount of land used to grow almonds has more than doubled to an estimated 1.3 million acres (526,000 hectares).Д«eekeepers have been keeping up with that growth by providing an ever-increasing proportion of the nationвЂ™s available stock of hives. The demand for bees has steadily risen over the last 20 years as popularity of the healthy, crunchy nut turned California into the worldвЂ™s biggest almond producer.

вЂњMore often than not, they steal to make money and leave the bees to die,вЂќ said Rowdy Jay Freeman, a Butte County sheriffвЂ™s detective who has been keeping track of hive thefts since 2013.ДЄ tightening supply of bees and soaring pollination fees - jumping from less than $50 to rent a hive two decades ago to as much as $230 per hive this year - are likely motivating beekeepers to go rogue. The rustler is usually a beekeeper or someone familiar with the transportation of bees.

Thefts usually happen at night, when no one is in the orchard and the bees are back in their hives. вЂњWe have to do what we can to protect ourselves. As the almond bloom approached and the hives became most valuable, he drove around patrolling the orchards in the dark. He also strapped cable locks around them and installed cameras nearby. Medina said the theft devastated his apiary, so this year he placed GPS trackers inside the boxes. Investigators also found frames, the kinds used to hold the honeycomb, belonging to Helio Medina, another beekeeper who lost 282 hives a year ago.

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