Driving thru the Almond orchards yesterday on Hwy 5, I observed something ... weird ...
As I approached, I saw a guy in a full-body bee suit walk up to a group of hives and begin ransacking them - he was tossing hive parts in all directions. As I drove past him (on the highway), I saw another group of hives (already) destroyed, and then another group, and another, etc.
I counted in excess of 200 hives destroyed.
These were hives set along the edge of a large almond orchard for Pollination. (It seems that hives are set in groups of 24 hives every 200 yards or so, along the orchards.) I counted at least 9 "groups" of hives totally ransacked (216 hives) as I drove by. Hive bodies, lids, frames, strewn about like piles of rubbish, where the day before, good hives had stood.
I can't begin to understand a reason for this - but the guy appeared "calm as a cucumber" as he did it - so there must be a reason.
I would like to have stopped to get a picture of the mess, but I was driving in heavy traffic, and couldn't risk it. The guy didn't seem concerned about the traffic flowing by him on the highway.
That was at 5:30 pm yesterday. I would guess that the carnage can still be seen this morning - on the east side of highway 5 (north) between Panoche Rd and the hwy 165 cutoff (to Los Banos, ca). I'm curious as to the reason for it.
Here's a picture of what one of those "groups" of hives looks like - normally ...
... 3 stacks of 4 hives per pallet, stacked double deep (8 per stack).