(December 23, 2010)   Detectives are investigating the destruction of four beehives at the East End Cooperative Organic Farm in East Hampton. The hives are owned by Mary Woltz, a beekeeper who tends 100 hives in various locations on the North and South Forks.

    Ms. Woltz, who sells honey and other products through her company, Bee’s Needs, found all of the bees dead in all of the hives when she arrived at the Long Lane farm to check them on Dec. 13.

    Between the demise of 30,000 to 50,000 bees and the ruin of more than 300 pounds of honey, the destruction adds up to a $5,000 loss, Ms. Woltz said. A felony criminal mischief investigation is ongoing, East Hampton Town Police Capt. Mike Sarlo said yesterday.

    Ms. Woltz said Monday that the mystery is particularly loathsome and unfathomable because it appears that the deed was not just random vandalism but was done by someone who knows about bees.

    The hives were in the center of the approximately 40-acre community farm, and were fenced in.

    “It was a thriving hive,” Ms. Woltz said. She described how she took each hive apart to check for signs of starvation or disease, finding none. “I kept smelling gasoline,” she said. When she got to the bottom of the hive, “the tray was filled with dead bees. I went to the next three hives and they were all dead.”

    “There are a lot of things that can happen to bees over winter,” she said, but there were no indications of any of the diseases that could decimate a hive.

There were, however, indications that the hive boxes had been carefully taken apart, and put back deliberately. Though all the pieces were in place, Ms. Woltz said, one portion of the frame was turned around, blocking an entrance and exit hole that would have allowed the bees to escape. Gasoline, she noted, is commonly used to destroy hives containing infectious disease spores.

    Although during other seasons, Ms. Woltz visits each of her hives about once every two weeks, the EECO Farm hives had been prepared for winter, and she had not inspected them since mid-November.

    “All of these indications suggest someone with beekeeping knowledge,” Ms. Woltz said on Monday. “The conclusion I draw from these observations is, someone thought they could do this and I would discover it months later and chalk it up to winter kill, because bees do die over winter.”

    However, she said, over the past two winter seasons she has only lost one hive per season.

    “It’s just such a totally inexplicable thing to do,” Peter Garnham, the chairman of the EECO Farm board of directors, said Tuesday. Ms. Woltz is a “wonderful person,” he said. “For this to happen to her of all people, and honeybees, for god’s sake — what could be more beneficial?”

    Like Ms. Woltz, he believes that the hive destruction is not a random occurrence. “This is someone who knows something about bees, who knows how to kill bees, who knows how to take apart a hive and put it back together.”    

    But, Mr. Garnham said, “Any theory we’ve come up with is a real stretch.”

    Even the idea that the destruction was wrought out of a business rivalry is hard to believe, both Mr. Garnham and Ms. Woltz said. “The one thing that beekeepers have in common is that they all love honeybees,” said Mr. Garnham. Ms. Woltz said she finds it unlikely that another beekeeper could stand to lay waste to the hives. “I don’t think they’d ruin that much honey,” she said.

    Both said that they hope the crime will be taken seriously. “My bees are dead, and the only thing I can do for them is to make sure that whoever did this knows it’s not okay,” Ms. Woltz said.

    There have been no other instances of vandalism or other crimes at the farm, save for the occasional pilfering of produce, Mr. Garnham said. “It’s horticultural jealousy most of the time,” he said, an inability to resist the perfect melon, for example. “In both instances, I think we found our culprit.”

    Mr. Garnham said there was “outrage and sadness in the EECO Farm community.” He said many of the 120 farm members had responded to an e-mail he circulated telling them about what happened to the hives, and asking, Mr. Garnham said, that “should you have seen anything that in retrospect seems suspicious, please let us know.”

    Those involved in the farm, he said — “a nice group of people who are unified in growing things for their families and friends” — now have a “feeling of violation.”

    “It’s very, very sad, and sick,” Mr. Garnham said.

    Whether or not Ms. Woltz will try again to keep bee colonies at the farm remains to be seen. She said she had gotten a “very clear message. The only way I could consider returning there is if the culprit is found, because I don’t feel safe, or wanted.”

    Ms. Woltz’s husband, Rob Calvert, had been a member of EECO Farm’s board of directors for about a year but recently resigned.

    There had been talk, Ms. Woltz said, of providing space at the farm for another beekeeper, which she opposed because of the potential for the spread of disease. Mr. Garnham said that the possibility of another beekeeper setting up hives had been raised last summer, but that nothing had come of it.