The beehives, now strapped in place after the incident. (photo: Andrew Dallas)

Bees are our friend. If you like to eat, then they’re your one of your best friends.

Apparently someone forgot how important bees are to sustaining society, and attacked the beehives at the Wangari Gardens, a 2.7-acre plot of land located near Washington Hospital Center and the reservoir.

Wangari offers local gardeners the opportunity to plant and manage crops in an urban environment, and features “a 50-fruit tree forest garden, public vegetable garden, herb garden, medicinal garden, berry garden, strawberry patch, outdoor classroom” and even “DC’s first public hammock.”

It is also home to Andrew Dallas’ four beehives. A Petworth resident, Dallas installed the hives two years ago at the Gardens, and his 100,000 or more bees have been busy pollinating the plants at the Gardens, and likely, the plants in your own yard.

“Bees’ territory is large,” Dallas said. “The can forage up to 3 miles away from their hive, which is a massive range.”

Sometime in the night on Saturday, May 2nd, one or more people entered the Gardens and attempted to destroy the hives for reasons unknown. The destroyed hive boxes were found on Sunday by some of the other gardeners. Nothing else at the Gardens was apparently touched.

The beehives strewn apart, with the bees still on the boxes (photo: Andrew Dallas)

The beehives are different sizes, but all are made of boxes that contain multiple frames that the bees construct their hive on, building their famous wax structures and producing honey to feed the hive (and, us humans).

“These are heavy structures, 70 or 80 pounds each. The shortest is 20 inches, but the largest is over 6 feet tall,” Dallas said. “The boxes were pushed over, and some were clearly thrown, with pieces of the frames found seven or eight feet away. Their intent looked clear, to destroy the hives.”

Each hive holds anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 bees, Dallas said. Once the hives were pushed over, approximately 100,000 bees came out. Chances are good the culprits didn’t leave the scene without a few stings.

Dallas said he’s rebuilt the hives, and the bees are snuggly back inside. They didn’t leave after the attack, but remained on the broken hives. He said it remains to be seen if they’ll continue to thrive, as it depends if the queens were killed by the attack. “If the queens were killed, then the hives will need to produce two new ones, and that will take time,” he said.

The large bee in the center is a queen. (photo: Andrew Dallas)

This was the first time the hives have been attacked at the Gardens, but other beekeepers in DC told him that it’s happened in the area before. “One beekeeper said they finally had to put up fences to protect their hives.”

He’ll be checking his four hives soon to see how they are recovering. If there are new bee eggs, then the queen is alive. If there are no new eggs, then he’ll have to wait to see if the hive successfully produces a new queen.

Dallas said that the hives produced over 150 pounds of honey last year, and he was previously hoping to double that for this year. Time will tell how the bees handle the disruption and damage. Meanwhile, he’s added tie-down straps to hold the hives in place. If anyone tries to untie them, they’ll end up disturbing the hives, and then “The bees will likely take care of defending the hives all by themselves,” Dallas said.

I offered to help promote his bees’ honey on the Petworth News website when it’s finally ready. And keep your eye out for a friendly neighborhood honey bee — they probably live at Wangari Gardens.

UPDATE: Dallas said that one of the queens did not survive the incident, but all others did. He’s watching the hive to make sure a new queen is created but feels good about the recovery.