She lost 200,000 bees to bandits — and is now one of many paying thousands on surveillance

Walking through the buzz and brush of her bee yard, Maggie Lamothe-Boudreau points to a nearly empty wooden pallet that used to house hives in her field in Saint-Adrien-d'Irlande, Que.

She's about 200,000 bees short.

Last week, four hives disappeared overnight in what she suspects was an amateur hive heist.

Leaving behind a pair of glasses and several boxes with drill holes and tape on their side, she says these incidents are all too common for producers in Quebec.

"Stealing a hive is like stealing a cow from a cattle farm.… My bees are very precious to me," said Lamothe-Boudreau, owner of Rayons de Miel, about 100 kilometres south of Quebec City.

Even the loss of a few hives will impact her 700-hive business.

"It's kind of emotional because you never imagine you get something stolen from you," said Lamothe-Boudreau.

"I love my bees. That's why I'm a beekeeper. My job is to take care of them, and in exchange, they give me honey."

She says police opened a file into the incident.

A beekeeper since 2011, this is the first time she's had hives stolen. But as vice-president of Quebec's beekeeping association, she says theft and vandalism have been affecting producers across the province for years. It's forced some to invest thousands of dollars in cameras and other surveillance methods, she says.

"It's kind of a chronic problem because I'm not the only one that has gotten a few hives like this stolen," said Lamothe-Boudreau.

She said hive thefts have been on her mind since "the big steal" that happened near Victoriaville, Que., in 2016.

That's when Marco Beausoleil was charged for making off with five million stolen honey bees from Saint-Valère, Que.

He pleaded guilty to the theft of 180 hives that made headlines across the province, and was ordered to serve nine months probation and pay a hefty fine.