The blue bees were housed in three beehives and their colonies at the corporate headquarters of The Giant Company, a supermarket chain at 1149 Harrisburg Pike in Carlisle, PA.
What happened to nearly 60,000 bees that apparently disappeared off the grounds of a major supermarket chain in Pennsylvania? That's what investigators are trying to find out.
The blue bees were housed in three beehives and their colonies at the corporate headquarters of The Giant Company at 1149 Harrisburg Pike in Carlisle. People believed responsible for the disappearance parked a vehicle in the grass off the Harrisburg Pike in order to load up the beehives, the Middlesex Township Police Department said in a press release.
According to the company’s community impact manager, Jessica Grove, the bees were taken between Jan. 28 and Jan. 30, Penn Live/Patriot News reported.
“Bees are an essential part of our food supply chain and having these beehives were one way we were helping to address the declining bee population here in our hometown community,” Groves said in a statement. “We are extremely disappointed that this happened and are continuing to cooperate with Middlesex Township Police Department.”
In 2020, the company introduced a seven-acre pollinator-friendly field at the supermarket’s headquarters.
The nation’s agricultural industry and environmentalists are concerned with the bee’s population dropping nationwide since roughly one-third of the country’s food supply depends on insects such as honeybees to pollinate plants, The Associated Press reported.
In 2021, Pennsylvania beekeepers reported a loss of 41% of their hives’ populations, which was slightly lower than the national average loss of around 45.5% of honeybees lost between April of 2020 and 2021, the news outlet reported
Anyone with information is asked to call the Middlesex Township Police Department at 717-249-7191.
