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Someone in Texas Killed Half a Million Bees

20 hives found burned, drowned near Alvin
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 2, 2019 9:25 AM CDT
Arsonist Kills Half a Million Bees
Bees swarm around a hive box at the Jack Brooks Regional Airport in Nederland, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2018.   (Ryan Pelham/The Beaumont Enterprise via AP)

Without bees, "we would see almost nothing in the grocery store." That's according to Steve Brackmann of Texas' Brazoria County Beekeepers Association. He has been frustrated by the dwindling of bee populations as a result of insecticides and herbicides—which made the intentional destruction of at least half a million bees early Saturday particularly devastating. Brackmann tells KTRK that 20 of the association's 24 hives were discovered torn apart, burned, or thrown into a lake near Alvin. "We're looking at 500,000 to 600,000 [bees] that have been destroyed," he says, adding any survivors are goners without a queen. More than $16,000 has been raised as some beekeepers lost their livelihoods. USA Today reports $6,000 is offered for information as police investigate. (More bees stories.)

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