Farm worker charged with smashing bee hives Staff Reports The Moultrie Observer The Moultrie Observer Thu Jun 07, 2012, 10:49 PM EDT
MOULTRIE — A migrant farm worker has been charged in the destruction of several bee hives valued at about $13,000.
Colquitt County sheriff’s deputies were called to the 400 block of Taylor Road Monday where someone had apparently driven over the bee hves with a tractor.
Some of the hives — $2,750 worth — belonged to Horton Family Apiaries of Nichols, the responding deputy said, but most belonged to Rossman Apiaries of Moultrie. Rossman lost 60 hives, worth $10,500 including the honey.
On Thursday, sheriff’s investigators arrested Carlos Valencia, 26, an employee of L&M Produce, on whose land the hives were located.
Investigator Shawn Bostick said Valencia had not been at work since the incident but showed up on Thursday.
“He came to work with an extremely large amount of insect stings,” Bostick said.
Bostick said Valencia denied damaging the hives and claimed the bumps on his skin weren’t bee stings; he said he had an allergic reaction to eggplant.
Valencia is charged with one count of criminal damage to property.
