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A woman who discovered a natural bee colony in Tauranga filled with expanding construction foam is disgusted at what she describes as the “murder of thousands of bees”.
The colony had taken up residence in a Tauranga City Council tree on Regent St, Brookfield. The hive had been there for years and “never been a problem”, the woman said.
A former beekeeper described the attack as “heartbreaking” and “cruel and disgusting”. The council was not aware of the attack and has said anyone concerned about bees on council land should contact it.
It was unclear who carried out the attack.
The woman, who would not be named due to potential repercussions, told the Bay of Plenty Times she was horrified to find on Wednesday that the hive had been blocked up with expandable foam usually used in construction.
The woman discovered there were already dead bees stuck to the hardened foam and an angry swarm surrounding it, trying to get in.
“The last [few] years, we’ve had people from the council come to us asking if we had a problem with the bees, we’ve said ‘no’. We just let them [the bees] go on their merry way.
“I’ve never heard of anyone getting stung, people walk past there all of the time.
“So ... when I saw it had been filled up with this filler stuff that you put in houses, I was disgusted. There were all of these bees swarming around it, trying to get in.”
“Whoever put it in there put it in really, really deep,” the woman said.
“I think it’s disgusting someone’s taken it upon themselves to do that.
“That’s the murder of thousands of bees.”
The woman said if someone took issue with the bees, they should have gone to the council to ask for the bees’ safe removal.
“Bees don’t harm anybody. They don’t disturb anybody. Bees are like that, they just do their merry little thing.”
A natural beehive was filled with expanding foam in Brookfield, causing the death of many bees before the survivors were saved.
The woman said the vandalism had actually made the colony “dangerous at that point in time when they hadn’t been before”.
“When you have thousands and thousands of bees trying to get back into their home, they would’ve been a danger to kids going home from school. Whereas, they weren’t before.”
Former beekeeper Chase Dewis responded to a call for help on social media and helped remove some of the foam and freed the bees and queen that had been trapped.
Dewis was only too happy to help when he saw the post. His background meant he had the skills and “a love for the bees”, he said.
When Dewis arrived, most of the angry swarm had either died or moved on from the tree, he said.
“Seeing that was just heartbreaking. It was just the whole of the trunk and all of the entrance for the beehive was filled with expanding foam, from top to bottom.
“You could hear the bees inside of there.
“Just to have someone go and do that, the words cruel and disgusting spring to mind.”
Dewis used a knife to break up the hardened foam enough to eventually create a new entranceway.
He said the beehive had been in that tree for years. When he used to live on the street, he and his children would regularly walk past it, especially during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
“It was so good to see a hive like that naturally formed, in the community. The kids used to fizz about it.
“It’s been there for so many years. There’s never been a problem,” he said.
Dewis said bees were crucial, because without them, effectively nothing would grow including kiwifruit, which was so important to the local and national economy.
“We’ve already got a shortage of bees. We need them.”
Tauranga City Council spaces and places operations manager Warren Aitken said it had not received any complaints about the foam incident.
“Usually if there is a natural beehive on our land or in our trees then we would engage an apiarist to remove the queen and nest. If it is a wasp nest, then we would destroy it for public safety.”
Aitken said the council’s advice to anyone who finds bees on council land or in a council tree was to let the council know so it could be assessed.
Bees of any kind are not listed in the Bay of Plenty Regional Pest Management Plan 2020-2030.
Kiri Gillespie is an assistant news director and a senior journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, specialising in local politics and city issues. She was a finalist for the Voyager Media Awards Regional Journalist of the Year in 2021.
