A Dutch beekeeper has spoken of his shock after his 10 beehives were burned down in a park in the central city of Almere, with the loss of an estimated half a million bees.
Harold Stringer said each hive had a colony of 40-60,000 bees, and the thought that anyone could kill them was horrific.
“It really hurts that my 10 hives have died,” he told local broadcaster Omroep Flevoland.
Police in Almere, which sits to the east of Amsterdam, have appealed for witnesses after the arson attack on Tuesday evening in the city’s scenic Beatrixpark. They posted pictures of the fire on social media.
The Dutch government says more than half of the country’s 360 species of bee are at risk of extinction, as the population of bees declines around the world.
Mr Stringer said police had told him an accelerant had been used to burn the hives, which were sitting on pallets in a wooded part of the park.
Barely any of the bees survived and he said that he had little faith the arsonist would be caught.
Fellow beekeeper Heleen Nieman told Dutch radio that she had three bee colonies and wanted to give him one of them.
For Mr Stringer, who looked after the bees for about nine years, the fire means starting a new colony in the park from scratch.
But he insists he will not give up.