Bee hives taken from remote Alderney site

THREE hives full of bees have been stolen from a remote site at Longis, Alderney.

The bees belonged to Henry Boughton-Leigh, who died in October, and were being cared for by a farm worker who described the theft as both sad and baffling.

Mark Atkinson had gone from Rose Farm, near the airport and where Mr Boughton-Leigh's wife, Jo, lives, to the hives on a dirt track next to Frying Pan Lane, Longis.

Mr Atkinson has been visiting the hives every fortnight to give the bees their winter feed supplement of sugar and water solution.

'When I arrived there at around lunchtime the hives had gone,' he said.

PC Andy Telford said one of the hives had since been found close to the dirt track, too far to have been blown away, and appealed to the public to look out to see if any of the other hives had been discarded.