Community & Business
22 September, 2026
Hive thefts sting bee keepers
ANOTHER four beehives have been stolen on the Tablelands since last week’s grand theft of 41 hives across two properties.
ANOTHER four beehives have been stolen on the Tablelands since last week’s grand theft of 41 hives across two properties.
Commercial beekeeper Tom Bidner of FNQ Honey and Bees, who lost 14 hives, and fellow apiculturist Jack Laughton, who lost at least 27, were the target of what was believed to be a professional operation.
“I’ve had another beekeeper come forward to me, he hadn’t known it was a bit of a thing, but he has lost four,” Mr Bidner said.
“But that one was the only one where they’d taken the entire hives as a unit.”
In the case of the other thefts, Mr Bidner said the hives had been dismantled, the bees, including the queens, and nests removed, and the hives then reassembled.
“To do that, you really need to come to the site prepared to do what you’re going to do. You’re not going to pull it off with, you know, the back-of-a-ute sort of job.
“They’re putting the hives back together to not alert the grower. They’re reassembling it all so it looks like no one’s been there.
“They’ve come with their own empty equipment (hive boxes), planning to do what they’re doing.”
Interestingly, Mr Bidner said the thieves were not after the honey and had in fact replaced containers of honey on top of the reassembled hives.
“They’re purely after the livestock of the bees themselves.”
He speculated the thefts were a locally-driven act, as the region was entering the lucrative pollination high season when farmers pay a fee for bees to pollinate their crops.
Mr Bidner’s operation of about 1400 hives are used for pollination services. He also brokers another 1000 hives from other keepers for bigger pollination jobs.
“We’re in the middle of the avocado season, then blueberries begin again in the later parts of this year and early into next year,” he said.
“It could be someone’s over-committed, basically ... promised more hives than they own, and are trying to get in on the season.
“So we’re trying to alert growers about the credibility of (their) pollination provider and if all of a sudden out of thin air they seem to have another couple of 100 hives.
“It takes years and years, and in some cases decades, to build up
commercial quantities of beehives. Especially now with Varroa mite pressure, we can’t import any stock from anywhere else.
“It might be worth (growers) knowing who they’re using and knowing that they are actually their bees. Because right now, these bees have been thieved and they’re sitting on someone else’s farm.”
The impact of the thefts both financially and for production and agriculture were devastating. Mr Bidner said the theft of the hives themselves would cost about $20,000 and the cost of lost pollination fees could be up to $10,000.
Farmers who had organised pollination times may have to go without, with the rolling impact being less fruit set. On top of that, he said, the region was also heading into its biggest honey production time of the year.
“We’ve spent money and time building these bee colonies up
all through the winter. We then go in to get a bit of pollination money, and then we head out and we sit on honey production for the remainder of the year until pollination begins again. So that’s loss of honey down the track as well.”
In a good season, a colony of bees can produce 60 to 80 kilos of honey per year.
Mr Bidner said another reson why the bees were taken was because of the difficulty in accessing bees due to Varroa Mite which has wiped out colonies in the south.
The mite is an external parasitic mite that attacks European and Asian honeybees, and arrived in Australia in 2022, in NSW, before spreading across the country.
“There is a slight possibility that the thefts were related, as there is demand for bees in southeast Queensland, because they’ve had Varroa mite for a lot longer, and they’re obviously suffering a lot of losses,” Mr Bidner said.
However, he believes it is a very slim possibility.
Honey Providore beekeeper
Tom Bidner who has lost 14 bee hives.
Graham Thornton, who has been warning of the Varroa mite over the past year, said the recent thefts were another blow to the local beekeeping community, which had only just learned that the mite has been detected for the first time in the most northern part of Queensland
He said the Department of Primary Industries reported that on 7 September incursions were found at El Arish and Cardwell, with a third suspected incursion reported near Innisfail.
He had had hives stolen about five years ago, and knew the impact of the losses.
Mr Thornton said he was having all of his hive locations checked out to ensure they hadn’t been targeted.
“The best thing to do to support the beekeepers is buy local honey,” he added.
Police said in a statement last week that they were continuing investigations into the thefts and asked the public to come forward if they saw anything or have any information.
