More Than 800,000 Bees, Worth Tens of Thousands of Dollars, Have Been Stolen in ‘Sophisticated’ Heists Across Northern Australia

The recent spread of a bee-killing parasite has contributed to an uptick in brazen thefts, experts theorize

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

September 22, 2026 1:38 p.m.

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

Australia’s apiary community is abuzz after a series of stunning heists has caused the disappearance of nearly one million bees from several properties across far north Queensland.  

The thefts, which experts believe could have been executed only by an experienced beekeeper, may be connected to the recent spread of a bee-killing parasite. The crime has sparked concerns for the health of regional food production, more than 30 percent of which relies directly on the pollinators.  

Authorities are still assessing the extent of the damage, as regional beekeepers continue to account for their colonies. Last week, 500,000 bees were believed to have been stolen; by this weekend, the number was updated to 800,000 and counting.  

“I was completely gutted because the amount of work that goes in preparing beehives to a good quality, to a high standard, is quite a lot of work,” Jack Laughton, a commercial beekeeper, tells Sophie Johnson of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). “It’s a bit of a shock to the system just to open a [hive] where you would normally see bees, expect a full, healthy hive, and there’s just nothing.”

Affected beekeepers estimate that the financial losses from such a brazen heist are in the tens of thousands of dollars, considering the value of the bees themselves, suspended honey production and lost income from pollination contracts—agreements that allow growers to rent colonies to pollinate their crops. Many bees are deployed at avocado farms in Queensland.  

Compounding the impact of lost revenue, and adding to the difficulty of recovering stolen populations, is the recent detection of a bee-killing parasite, the varroa mite, in the region. In June 2022, Australia became the last inhabited continent on which varroa was detected. Just over a year later, the parasite had become so widespread that the government abandoned its eradication efforts, though not before spending more than $100 million in an attempt to prevent varroa’s spread. The decision shifted additional expenses and burdens onto apiarists.

“Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory now have well-established varroa populations,” ecologists Casey C. Forster and Théotime Colin wrote last month in the Conversation. “In these states, local apiarists have largely shifted to routine management, which involves regularly monitoring and managing mite levels through various treatments.” 

Beekeeper Tom Bidner tells the Guardian’s Andrew Messenger that the parasite’s recent spread to Queensland and the thefts are a “double whammy.” 

“We haven’t detected mites in our colonies yet, but we should be putting our time and energy into that,” Bidner says. “And instead, we’ve had this spate of theft.” 

Sophisticated methods were used, officials say, to steal dozens of colonies, each of which contains 15,000 to 20,000 bees.  

The perpetrator stole entire brood boxes—the colony’s breeding system, where the queen lays eggs and young bees are raised—from more than 40 hives. Because brood boxes sit in the bottom of a hive, their disappearance wouldn’t immediately be noticeable from afar. The operation likely required specialized equipment, which has fueled speculation that an experienced apiarist is to blame. 

“This doesn’t take ten minutes. This is someone [who has] been there for a couple of hours and likely more than one person helping achieve this in that sort of time frame,” Bidner tells ABC. The hives are “most likely sitting on someone’s farm right now doing pollination with them totally unbeknownst.” 

This is not the first bee theft to rock Australia this year. In May, roughly 80 hives, worth an estimated $150,000, were stolen from properties in New South Wales.  

“It’s definitely a beekeeper,” Mitch McLennan, owner of the Honey Shed in Tabulam, told the Guardian’s Ima Caldwell at the time. “Like, no one else goes in and steals any hives of bees. … What else are you going to do with them unless you’re a beekeeper? I’d say that it’s some disheartened beekeeper that has decided they’re going to steal someone else’s.” 

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.