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An Illinois beekeeper whose bee hives were stolen and allegedly destroyed by the Illinois Department of Agriculture has stirred up a hornet’s nest with his questions on why the state did this, and most importantly, what they did with his bees.

The state claims the bees were destroyed because they were infected with a disease called foulbrood.

 

But when the 58-year apiary keeper had his hearing-three weeks after the removal of his bees without his knowledge-the state’s “evidence” had disappeared, leaving more questions than answers about the raid on the beekeeper’s hives.

 

Some people, including the beekeeper, Terrence Ingram, suspect the raid has more to do with Ingram’s 15 years of research on Monsanto’s Roundup and his documented evidence that Roundup kills bees, than it does about any concerns about his hives.

 

Interestingly, the state’s theft targeted the queen bee and hive he’d been using to conduct the research.

 

The Ingram Case

 

A recent article by Tom Kocal in the Prairie Advocate retells the full story of how Terrence Ingram’s bees and hives wound up being taken by the Illinois State Department of Agriculture (IDofAG).

 

While the state claims the removal of the property was due to Ingram’s failure to comply with the Department’s notice instructing him to burn the affected hives, they have been less than open about why the inspectors came in and took the bees and hives without due process.

 

At a time when the Ingram’s were absent from the property. Ingram claims the Department also conducted three out of four inspections on his private property while no one was home.

 

While Department inspectors claim his hives had foulbrood-an allegedly highly contagious disease-Mr. Ingram believes he could prove that this was not the case. As reported by the featured Prairie Advocate article:

 

“Ingram knew that the inspectors could not tell what they were seeing and had warned the Department that if any of them came back it would be considered a criminal trespass. Yet they came back when he was not home, stole his hives and ruined his 15 years of research.”