Two boys are facing felony charges after vandalism at an Iowa honey farm killed 500,000 bees, according to police.
Police say the boys, ages 12 and 13, wrecked equipment and knocked over 50 hives at the Wild Hill Honey farm in Sioux City last month. All of the bees — at least half a million — died in the snow.
Owners Justin and Tori Englehardt found the dead bees when they went to clear snow off the hives on their 18-acre property. “We found complete destruction of our hives and supply shed,” they wrote on their Facebook page.
“They knocked over every single hive, killing all the bees. They wiped us out completely,” Justin Engelhardt told The Sioux City Journal. “They broke into our shed, they took all our equipment out and threw it out in the snow, smashed what they could. Doesn’t look like anything was stolen; everything was just vandalized or destroyed.
He called the crime “completely senseless.” The loss was estimated at $60,000.
The devastation was so complete that the couple feared they couldn’t afford to revive the six-year-old operation. The business wasn’t insured; bee operations usually can’t get insurance, according to Engelhardt.
But a friend of the Engelhardts started a GoFundMe page that quickly raised more than $30,000 in donations. They now plan to rebuild.
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