Tracking Hive Theft with Deputy Sheriff Rowdy Freeman (330)

330 - Tracking Hive Theft with Deputy Sheriff Rowdy Freeman

Brian Baker: Hello.

Kathy Baker: This is Kathy.

Brian: I'm Brian.

Kathy: We are with Baker Bees of Pride, Louisiana.

Brian: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Kathy: We are at the Bee Expo, and we're going to have a great time.

[music]

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Jeff: Hey, a quick shout-out to Better Bee and all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't, either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 300 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtoday.com. Hey, thanks a lot for that fantastic opening from the floor of the North American Honeybee Expo in January. That was fun, Becky.

Becky: Oh, wasn't it? It was just so nice to actually talk to people and meet them while they did their openers. That put a little special twist on it. It's nice that we've now met all of our NABE listener openers.

Jeff: That's true. It was really fun to do, and thanks, everybody, for stopping by. Now that we're through many of our [chuckles] openers that we had saved up through the upscaling series, it's nice to be able to start using some of our friends from North American Honeybee Expo, and they're opening, so it's fun times. Becky, you're probably wondering why I am sitting in this weird location, and the sound may be a little bit different.

Becky: There's a big change. You are not in headquarters? You're not at the Beekeeping Today podcast headquarters from what I can tell. You are in a different location.

[laughter]

Becky: The world headquarters.

[laughter]

Becky: Did you go on vacation, Jeff?

Jeff: No, I am not quite on vacation. We're in the middle of selling our place in Olympia and actually downsizing. We're temporarily in a hotel while there are thousands of strange people walking through our house, and it's just driving me flipping crazy.

Becky: That's so special. [laughs]

Jeff: I'm happy that we're recording. That gets my mind off the thought of people touching my stuff. [laughs]

Becky: Is there any chance that they're going to be in your studio and they're going to turn a couple of buttons on and they're going to join us today while we do our recording? [laughs]

Jeff: I hope not, but I'm in fear of my guitars- [laughs]

Becky: Oh, I get it.

Jeff: -and the bee's outback.

Becky: Change for you?

Jeff: Change for me, but it's all for the good. I'm happy. One of the things that this change has forced me to do is move my bee yard and find a new location, and that I used to look for new yards, not often, but a couple times a year. A year drive around and talk to people, but it's been a long time since I've actually reached out and tried to find a new yard, and that was fun to do but nerve-wracking too.

Becky: I've never had the pleasure of keeping my bees in my own yard. I have a lot of great relationships with landowners out there, but it's got to be a little different to dip your toe back into the sharing space-

Jeff: [laughs]

Becky: -feeling of where you're keeping your bees.

Jeff: I kept in mind some of the things that we've heard through our upscaling series and from our other guests about how you work with landowners and such. All very good advice. I found it interesting, the place where I'm going to move most of my colonies, they do press cider, and they have other little agricultural events throughout the year. They're open year-round, but they have quite a few acres. They said, "Oh, well, we'd be excited to have you have bees here." She said, "Well, someone tried to keep them here before, and they just swarmed all the time, and the person never took care of them, and they all died. Are you going to do that?"

Becky: Oh, boy. Oh no. [laughs]

Jeff: I said, "God, I hope not." [laughs]

Becky: That's never the plan.

[laughter]

Jeff: That is not the plan. I said, "They will swarm at times, and I do everything I can from a management standpoint to limit that." She was very kind, and she, "Oh yes, I understand that, but I just was worried about--" I said, "No, no, probably, you'll see me more than you want to actually."

[laughter]

Becky: Well, that's exciting. Maybe the fact they used to swarm with the other beekeeper means that there's a really good nectar flow there and maybe that beekeeper wasn't able to keep up, and the brood nest was backfilled with nectar, and swarming happened. Let's hope that it's a good sign for your honey crop.

Jeff: I'm hoping so. I'm hoping that it's a really good location. They're all organic farm, anything they grow there. She's very quick to tell me that they don't use any pesticides and then the herbicides they use is just a little bit of roundup in the parking lot, little spot treatments. I said, "Well, that'll be fine." There's also a little creek that runs through the back of the property, so I don't have to worry about water for the bees. I think it's going to work out well.

Becky: Are people showing up and drinking cider?

Jeff: It's not hard cider, it's pressed apple cider.

Becky: That's very different than what I was thinking.

Jeff: [laughs]

Becky: Okay. I was thinking you might have to just worry if people were going and having a few pints and then exploring. It sounds like you don't have to worry about that.

Jeff: It's more of a farm market than a beer market, the cider market. That kind of cider.

Becky: You're good. I didn't even go there.

[laughter]

Jeff: I'm really looking forward to our guest today. Well, you know him better than I do, so why don't you tell me more about him.

Becky: Rowdy Freeman is a California Hive thief tracker. It's just--

Jeff: We'll have to ask him what his official title is.

Becky: Right? It's just weird to put that all together. He was interested in talking to us and telling us about the hard work that they're doing out there to try to protect everybody's colonies.

Jeff: Oh, fantastic. This will be exciting because we've talked to Darren Mays, who is the New York City beekeeper from one coast, and now we're talking to Rowdy Freeman from California and he's a beehive theft investigator, so we'll have to asks Rowdy a little bit more about that-

Becky: That's formal. [laughs]

Jeff: -what his official title is. Well, I see Rowdy's out in the waiting room right now. Let's hear from our sponsors, and we'll be right back.

[music]

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Jeff: Thanks to our sponsors for all their support that they've given us through the years sitting across this great big virtual beekeeping today podcast table right now is Rowdy Freeman from California, a commercial beekeeper. Rowdy, welcome to the show.

Rowdy Freeman: Okay. Thanks for having me on.

Becky: We're so happy you're here.

Jeff: Rowdy. You've had a very busy spring, both as a beekeeper and then your other job as a deputy sheriff, and you came to our attention because you also, not only are you a beekeeper, but you're also involved through the sheriff's department in tracking down hive thefts. Is that true?

Rowdy: Yes, I work for the Butte County Sheriff's Office in Northern California, but I'm also part of the California Rural Crime Prevention Task Force, and I play a big role in helping with the big hive theft situation that we deal with from year to year in California.

Jeff: I jumped right into it without asking, [laughs] can you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got started in bees, how you got to where you are today?

Rowdy: It just happenstance. I've been a deputy with the Butte County Sheriff's Office for almost 20 years now. I'd say back around 2012, I was in our felony investigations unit. My sergeant at the time assigned a beehive theft investigation to me. I had no idea what I was dealing with. I had the same questions that everyone asks me now, "Why would someone steal hives? What do they do with the stolen hives, and how do they steal them?" Those seem to be the three big questions. After I initially talked to the victim, I started doing some research online, just trying to educate myself on what I was dealing with and how to best go about investigating the case. That's where it started.

It just sucked me in. The more I read and learned, the more intriguing and fascinating I found the beekeeping industry to be and beekeeping itself and the honeybees, so I just ran with it from there. A couple more thefts came in over the next year or so that I handled. I started talking with the California State Beekeepers Association at that time, trying to learn more about it.

Jeff: You weren't keeping bees at this time, right? You were happy being a deputy sheriff?

Rowdy: Yes. The only thing I knew about honeybees at that point is that they stung you and it hurt.

Jeff: [laughs] That fact hasn't changed, has it?

Rowdy: No, you get used to it, but it still hurts.

Jeff: How long have you been keeping bees commercially?

Rowdy: I bought my first six hives in 2014. Then ever since then, I've been increasing my operations. Now I run approximately 1,200 hives.

Becky: I don't want to jump to it too quickly, but have they ever been stolen?

Rowdy: They have not. Not to say they won't ever be stolen, but luckily I haven't had any stolen yet.

Becky: It's very interesting though that you've not only got a new hobby, but you got a new job because you were investigating a crime. What about you talking with the beekeepers who were victims of this crime, that had to have played a part in it, the relationship you had with these commercial beekeepers?

Rowdy: Yes. The more thefts I investigated, the more victims, the more beekeepers I started talking to and getting to know, I soon learned that there wasn't really anybody in the state of California that was keeping track of hive theft from year to year, much to my surprise. I just took it upon myself and started keeping track back in 2013. Then somehow I just fell into the part of being the so-called law enforcement liaison for the beekeeping industry in California. The State Beekeepers Association started directing all media inquiries and stuff like that regarding hive theft to me. It just exploded from there.

Then I took on beekeeping myself, which when I bought my first six hives, I wasn't really sure where that was going. It was more for just a hobby and my own enjoyment. Then, I don't know, they say you get the bug, so to speak, and it just keeps on going. Now, 12 years later, whatever it is, I have 1,200 hives, and it's definitely a second full-time job.

Jeff: Are you running those by yourself?

Rowdy: I was for a lot of years with my dad and I, and then I have three full-time employees now that do a lot of the heavy lifting and day-to-day work for me. That helps out a lot.

Jeff: Are all of your colonies focused there in Northern California, or are you also transporting them?

Rowdy: For right now, none of my bees leave Northern California. I operate between Chico in Butte County and Alturas in Modoc County, which is about three and a half, four hours apart. My bees are always somewhere within that four-hour distance in Northern California.

Jeff: Let's talk about the hive thefts. A lot of people think the vandalism is the worst problem. How big of a problem is hive thefts?

Rowdy: Yeah, I've been dedicating a lot of time and effort to this problem for many years now. It's definitely a lot bigger than most people think. Just to give you guys some context, I worked with a gentleman who was in the Army Intelligence and the FBI for years. We did a hive theft assessment from 2013 to 2023, so that 10-year period. We were able to determine that hive theft increased between that 10-year time period by, what was it, about 86%. It's always been something that's been a problem before I got into beekeeping, but it's much more of a problem now.

Just for instance, in 2024, there were almost 3,500 hives stolen statewide, which is over millions of dollars in economic loss. I've been trying to get the California Department of Food and Ag to step in and help out with hive theft because I feel like they should be. That's their job. Their priority is to help protect agriculture and livestock in the state of California. In the last 10 years, there was more hive theft and monetary loss than cattle theft in the state of California.

Becky: Oh, I have so many questions, but let me start with a hive theft is not necessarily just picking up the hives and moving them out. It could also be going into the colonies and pulling out bees and brood, right?

Rowdy: Yes, so we see several different methods. Two of the ways that they steal them, they used to primarily just drive around during the day and scope out easily accessible hives that weren't marked, and then they would come back at night and steal them. They were doing that out of a holding yard because there's a lot of bees in one spot. Now we're seeing more common, the beekeeper will actually place the hives in the orchard, and then the thief will come right behind them a night or two later and literally pick up the hives that the beekeeper themselves actually placed in the orchard for pollination. That seems to be more common.

We have also seen quite a bit of what you were asking about, where they're actually taking the bees out of the boxes. We've had several reports over the years where beekeepers would have come back into the orchards to work their hives and they'd pop the lid off and the center, four or five, six frames out of the top box were completely gone. It was just a hole.

Only a beekeeper would know to do that because in February in the orchards, it's cold, hot air rises, so that cluster of bees is up in that top box in the middle, and the queen is in the middle of that cluster because they're out keeping her warm and protected. If they take those middle hives where that cluster is, they're essentially taking the entire colony.

Becky: That's harder to track unless frames are branded.

Rowdy: Yes. We see people running them like a chop shop, like most people are familiar with, with vehicles. They'll steal the hives, take them back to a location, whether it's inside or outside, and they'll take all the bees out of the stolen equipment and put it in their own equipment. Then they'll burn the stolen equipment to get rid of the evidence, or they take the stolen hives back to their property and they just paint over them to try to mask them and then put their own brands on them and stenciling to try to hide it that way.

Jeff: Is the motive to steal the bees, is the motive to sell the bees, where are the thieves making their money?

Rowdy: It's primarily driven by money. In the past, they would steal them prior to pollination and get them in on their own contract, and then they'd make the pollination fees off the stolen hives. They could make a pretty good profit doing that by stealing bees that someone else took care of all year long and then stealing them right from underneath, out from underneath of them before they have a chance to get pollination fees for them and then the thieves get the pollination fees.

Now we're seeing a little bit of both. They steal them, get them in on a pollination lease, get paid for those, and then they turn right around and they sell those stolen hives to another beekeeper that's looking to buy hives after pollination, whether it's in California or across the country.

Jeff: If they're doing this, you would think it would be easy for people to see trucks of stolen bee hives going down the road, but I guess there are so many trucks going on down the road that it'd be hard to distinguish a stolen hive from a not stolen hive.

Rowdy: There's a couple of different issues that make it very difficult. I always describe it as being the perfect crime because it's beekeepers stealing from other beekeepers. It's hard for anyone in the general public or even beekeepers to differentiate the actual beekeeper or a thief. They look alike. The thieves are actually beekeepers. We're all in white suits. They have the right equipment driving around a flatbed and pulling a forklift. It's definitely a very difficult thing to identify and track.

Becky: Have many of them running for many years so that they are becoming more sophisticated and growing in their ability to steal hives?

Rowdy: Yes, I'd say the groups that are stealing these hives from year to year, they keep doing it until they get caught. There was a couple Ukrainians back in 2016 and 2017 that were responsible for stealing 2,700 hives throughout California. Eventually, greed gets to them, they get too brazen, and they get caught. We were able to put a stop to that. We have an idea of who is responsible for stealing the majority of those 3,500 hives last year. We've been working on that information this year. Fortunately, so far this year, the theft numbers are way down compared to last year.

We're barely at 300 right now, statewide, that I know of, 3,200 less than last year. I'm not sure if it's the calm before the storm, if the suspects know that we've been looking at them, then they're going to start stealing hives after pollination to sell them to other beekeepers, or if they kind of got scared and they backed off a little bit. I'm not sure what the situation is right now. I'd like to think that because of our getting the information out there on social media and in the public maybe made them a little more hesitant to steal the numbers that they did last year.

Becky: The couple that you caught, did they see prison time?

Rowdy: It's an interesting scenario that took place. One of the suspects ended up getting ill and passing away, and then the other one, I'm not sure if he ever saw any jail time outside of his original arrest or not. That was a case that was handled down in Fresno County. I believe their arrest was in 2017 or '18. I can't remember now. It's been a few years. It didn't make it all the way through the court process.

Becky: I know a beekeeper last year, didn't he put up a $100,000 reward to be able to catch the person?

Rowdy: Yes, beekeepers are trying to do whatever it takes, and some people are desperate. Whether you're a small beekeeper or a big beekeeper, a theft is a big hit. It can put beekeepers out of business. It has put beekeepers out of business over the past few years because it's just such a loss. Beekeepers depend on the pollination fees to run their business throughout the year. If you don't get that, a lot of guys don't have any other means of making money and they can't support it. They have to close down whether they want to or not.

Jeff: Let's take this opportunity to take a quick break and we'll be right back with Rowdy Freeman from California.

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Rowdy, we can track our luggage going through the airport. Are beekeepers tracking their hives being loaded up and stolen, or is it not that simple?

Rowdy: It's not quite that simple, but yes, the beekeeping industry has been looking at a number of different pieces of technology to try to help deter theft or maybe be able to track their stolen equipment down if there is a theft. There's been all kinds of things. I get a lot of phone calls from people that want to help out, and some things help and some don't. I will say that it's not one thing that is going to solve the problem. It's several different things working together that are going to help solve this issue. After dealing with it for so many years, GPS tracking devices are nice.

If you can imagine in the month of February in California, there's 1.2 million acres of almond trees planted. To pollinate that number of acres, there has to be around 2.4 million beehives in the state of California. Those beehives are placed in thousands of locations up and down the state. You can't possibly place a tracker in every one of those beehives. What we do is each beekeeper picks what they think might be the best place to put the trackers. You'll just put one or two throughout and hope that we get lucky. If there's a theft, the thief steals a hive with the tracker in it.

I've really been pushing the Apple AirTags this year because they're feasible, they work pretty good, and you don't have to pay a monthly monitoring fee, which is what ends up being a big expense. I also am a big supporter of the wireless game cameras, the ones that you hook up to cellular service. You put those on ingress and egress locations, so hope to catch suspect vehicles and license plates. The suspects are smart too, they're always trying to stay one step ahead. They know to go out during the daytime and look for these cameras. Then they come in and they'll steal them or break them or do whatever.

These wireless cameras are nice, especially the 360 ones, because they can't get close to them without getting a picture and having it uploaded to the cloud. They can go ahead and break it if they want to, but we still have the photo.

Jeff: What else besides the technology tools available to beekeepers can beekeepers do to prevent or protect their colonies from being stolen? Whether they're in almonds or they're down in Missouri in a pumpkin patch somewhere?

Rowdy: I think one of the most important things is having a close working relationship with the property owner, the farmer, the rancher, having good communication with them so they know when you're going to be there, when you're not going to be there, what your vehicles look like. They know what your door signs look like. They know who your employees are. If something kind of seems out of the ordinary, maybe they're going to, a little more apt to pick up the phone and call you just to say, "Hey, are you guys out here working bees right now?" Maybe you are, maybe you're not. That close relationship. Try to put your bees behind lock gates if possible. I know being a beekeeper that that's not possible.

You have some locations that you can do that with, but most of them aren't behind locked gates. Branding your beehives, making sure you're registered with the state that you operate in. Brand your equipment with your state-registered brand. Stencil your business name, phone number, and where you're from on the side of your boxes. All of that stuff's a requirement in California and a lot of other states, but we still have a lot of beekeepers that don't do that.

Jeff: Do you have any advice for color of hives?

Rowdy: No, that's kind of to each their own. People in the beekeeping industry know that bees tend to like lighter colored boxes, which is why for the most part, you see everything in lighter pastel colors or white. The bees tend to be a little more aggressive sometimes to darker colors, but also the darker colors absorb heat. The bees are sitting out in these boxes in the sun so you want to try to reflect as much heat as you can to help them out.

Jeff: Is it large-scale operations that are doing this or is it just a couple of beekeepers doing this on their own to try to maximize their yearly profit? I guess is it organized or not?

Rowdy: Yes, there has been some organized crime associated to it in the past, but for the most part, it's just a small group, maybe two, three people that are out there doing this from year to year. I don't like to refer to the thieves as beekeepers because if they were actually hardworking beekeepers, they wouldn't be stealing from other people.

Becky: I wonder how many small thefts aren't even reported or maybe even discovered because you can lose bees here and there. I think it's important to tell the listeners who don't know, even a pallet of four hives can bring in almost $1,000 in pollination contracts.

Rowdy: Yes, so the state of California has a penal code with 487g as the California penal code, which is theft of livestock. There's no minimum dollar amount required. A single animal is a felony. Technically, a single bee could be a felony. I doubt that would ever fly in California, but a single beehive would be a felony. That's one of the things I've been struggling with over the last several years is there are a lot of thefts that go unreported, whether it's big or small, and there's several reasons for it. Some beekeepers have been victims multiple times and feel like they didn't get the help from law enforcement that they should have, and so they just don't report it. Other people are just too busy, and they don't end up reporting it, whether it was intentional or they forgot. I do my best to track all the social media sites to see about reports that aren't reported to law enforcement, but are talked about online.

I do find a lot of them that way, and I'll reach out to the victims and make sure that they report it. At the places that I speak, I always tell people that if you don't tell us, we don't know about it. If they don't report it, law enforcement doesn't know that it happened.

Becky: My guess is that every report, even if it's a small number of colonies stolen, is really important just for mapping it out so that you can figure out maybe where they're operating.

Rowdy: Yes, and I am getting more and more people to report stuff, so the smaller ones, so people will call me and report 4 or 8 or 12, and it is important because it's still a big loss. Bees are worth a lot of money, and to try to rebuild that stolen stuff isn't cheap. It costs a lot of money. It takes a lot of time, a lot of hard work. There is no number that's too small.

Becky: Is there a website that people can go to to report, or do you have a special number that they can call?

Rowdy: Yes, I always encourage the victims to contact the local sheriff's office wherever the hives were stolen. You have to call and make a report there because they have jurisdiction, and then also contact the California State Beekeepers Association. You can do that online. Let them know about the theft, because I work closely with them, and we partner-- I'm a member of the California State Beekeepers Association, and so we work together on this hive theft issue.

When we find out information, we get as much as info as we can about it with some photos, and then we put flyers up on the website. Also, the social media pages, the commercial beekeeping, social media places is a good place for people to post information because, like I said, I follow those and I look for any thefts on there that may have occurred that wasn't reported to law enforcement.

Becky: Rowdy, are you so well known now in California that if one county sheriff receives a report, they'll message you and let you know, or at least tell the person who reports it to contact you?

Rowdy: Yes, everyone knows I'm the guy that helps deal with hive theft in California. I serve on many boards. I'm on the state apiary board as a subject matter expert for hive theft for the California Department of Food and Ag. Most of the people that would take the report at different counties around the state are part of the rural crime task force. I personally know a lot of them, they'll reach out to me and let me know about it, but then also a large majority of them reach out to me to ask questions and look for advice on how to do stuff or-- I know a lot of the people in the industry, so if they're looking to contact someone, I probably have a way to get ahold of just about anybody in the beekeeping industry across the United States.

Jeff: How many other officers, are you aware of that focus primarily or largely on beehive theft?

Rowdy: I'm not aware of anybody else.

Jeff: Any particular case that you experienced that just made you really scratch your head, just really amazed you with the audacity of the thieves or the crime?

Rowdy: Not really. I've been in law enforcement 20 years, so nothing surprises me. Just when you think you've seen or heard it all, something really odd happens, but as far as hive theft goes, nothing surprises me. It just is what it is.

Becky: Has anybody ever been caught while they're in the process of stealing hives?

Rowdy: Yes, there has been more than one occasion. Last year, there were some suspects that kept going back to the same spot and stealing hives. The victim put up cameras and got alerted and responded, and caught them in the act of loading hives on a truck and actually held them down on the ground for two hours until local law enforcement was able to get there. There's been several incidents where people have been caught red-handed, so to speak.

Jeff: Rowdy, just a quick change of subject real quick, but how are your bees, and how were they this year in the almonds?

Rowdy: That's a good question. As you guys may or may not know this year, the beekeeping industry is experiencing above-normal losses nationwide, over 60% of hives lost in the United States over a six-month period, which is pretty alarming. Some people have lost their entire operation, 100% of their colonies. There's a lot of people between 60 and 80%. I'm a smaller beekeeper, so generally, I'm between 5 and 10% every year. Normally, I hover around 7%, which is pretty good, but this year I'm like everybody else, and I was about 32% loss.

I'm looking at a bunch of empty boxes, dead outs, like what we call them, out my window right now and we got a lot of rebuilding to do over the next couple of months now that the bees have finally turned the corner from winter and they're growing out of the food they've been able to collect in the almonds. Hopefully, the majority of the beekeepers that experience those big losses will be able to rebuild and stay in the business.

Jeff: Where do your bees go after the almonds?

Rowdy: Mostly into my holding yards around Butte County, where we do all our spring work, and then I do a little bit of cherries and a little bit of kiwis, some prunes, and then I truck the bees to Northern California up in Modoc County about three and a half hours away where I put them out for honey for the summer.

Jeff: Rowdy, is there anything you'd like to let our listeners know about the work that you do before we say our goodbyes?

Rowdy: It's a huge problem. Like I said, there's more hive theft in the state of California than any other livestock theft, and I can say that as a matter of fact because I know that. I've talked to the California Department of Food and Ag and their enforcement division who deals with all of that stuff, and there's nothing else that has more theft as far as livestock is concerned as honeybees.

It's something that I'm really trying to solve and find some resolutions to and help the industry, and I think I'm in a unique position to do that because I understand both sides of it from being in law enforcement for 20 years and now being a beekeeper for 12 years. I have a pretty good understanding on both sides of the tracks on this situation, more so than most other people.

Jeff: Rowdy, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon, and we look forward to talking to you again, and best of luck this season.

[music]

Rowdy: All right, I appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Becky: Thanks, Rowdy.

Jeff: Bee thefts are up all over the place. It does not surprise me, but it does surprise me.

Becky: It surprises me just because, like if you were thinking I'm going to steal stuff, I would think a bunch of stinging insects would be really low on your list, but if you have beekeeping skills-- also, it's a lot of equipment. You just can't show up and take it. You need a big truck, you need a way to load the bees onto the truck. It's very interesting that people who know just how hard beekeepers work because they're doing the exact same kind of work, are the ones who are perpetrating these crimes.

Jeff: It just amazes me that the people are willing to steal from other beekeepers and let the other person suffer for it. It just does not fit in my mindset.

Becky: Do you know who I feel badly for? You know that when this first started happening and beekeepers were going to their hives and finding the middle frames missing, you know that I bet some employees were blamed initially for doing something wrong and not putting frames in or something like that, because we've all done it in our colonies where we pull out a frame and then we're going to put something back in there and then we forget and then it's a mess, but can you imagine going-- and even those first few colonies going, "Oh, oh, oh my gosh, somebody stole my bees." [chuckles]

Jeff: Who took those center hives?

Becky: [crosstalk] Where did they go, but you know that somebody was probably blamed for that.

Jeff: When you think about a beehive theft, you just don't think about George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Ocean's 11. Like Oceans 60,000 or something like that. [crosstalk]

Becky: Something like that. [laughs] Anyway, I'll just say this. I think it is fantastic that Rowdy not just took up the cause of helping to solve these hive thefts, but also ended up becoming a commercial beekeeper on top of all of it. It really says a lot about the industry where when you meet the victim, you decide you want to become like them in the sense of become one of those beekeepers.

[music]

Jeff: That's really good. It was fun talking to Rowdy. That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews tab along the top of any webpage.

We want to thank Betterbee and our regular, longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books, for their generous support. Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Beekeeping Today podcast listener, for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments on our website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:40:42] [END OF AUDIO]