Beehive campaign pays off already

A police campaign targeting beehive thieves appears to have begun paying off already, with officers in Kawakawa seizing 34 hives believed to have been stolen around the Mid North.

Sergeant Kevin Milne said he was at a property at Waiomio, just south of Kawakawa, on an unrelated matter late last week when he noticed two trailers loaded with beehives around the back of the house. Some had been freshly painted, further arousing his suspicions.

He took note of a registration number stamped on some of the hives, looked it up when he got back to the station, and found that they were registered as belonging to a Mid North beekeeper who had reported a number of thefts over the past year.

Armed with that information, police obtained a search warrant and returned to the address, where they seized 34 hives, containing frames but no bees.

Sergeant Milne said a 54-year-old man living at the address would be interviewed further this week before any decision was made on charges. The owners of the other hives were still being sought.

Police launched a Northland-wide campaign in May to stem a spate of beehive thefts fuelled by soaring demand for manuka honey, asking members of the public to call *555 from their cell phones if they saw any suspicious movement of beehives, for example if they were being transported late at night. Most legitimate movement of hives occurs around dawn or dusk.

Sergeant Milne said last week that a member of the public reported a ute at Kaiwaka laden with hives late at night. Police were able to check the vehicle's registration, and found it belonged to a registered beekeeper.

"But that shows it's working. We've got information coming in from around Northland," he said.

The campaign is the brainchild of the Kawakawa police, particularly Constable Courtney Sandilands, and also involves the Beekeepers' Association and other agencies.

Police have access to a database maintained by food safety firm AsureQuality, which lists the details, vehicles and beehive numbers of all registered beekeepers in Northland.

The isolated location of many hives and the burgeoning number of people in the industry makes it difficult for individual beekeepers to know who is above board and who is not. If in doubt, report it.