A HOYLAND beekeeper is appealing for information after four nursery hives were stolen from farmland at Platts Common where he keeps his colonies.
Eric Whitlam, of Milton Road, has been keeping bees for around 30 years and said the thefts were the first he had experienced in all that time.
He believes the hives that went must have been taken by someone with connections to beekeeping because they would be of no use to anyone else - though he is insistent that no-one from the local beekeeping community would have been involved.
The hives which disappeared contained only a few bees as well as newly hatched queens and were being used as experimental nurseries which could have established new colonies.
Mr Whitlam said had they been given the time to become better established, they could have each been worth around £150.
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