🔗 Share this article 500,000 Honeybees Perish in Netherlands Arson Attack. Harold Stringer's ten hives were destroyed in a park in the city of Almere. A Dutch beekeeper has expressed shock after his 10 beehives were burned down in a public garden in the central city of Almere, causing the death of an estimated half a million bees. Harold Stringer mentioned that every colony housed a population of forty to sixty thousand bees, and the idea that someone could kill them was devastating. "It is deeply painful that my ten colonies have perished," he told local broadcaster. Police in Almere, which sits to the northeast of Amsterdam, have appealed for observers after the deliberate fire on Tuesday night in the city's picturesque Beatrixpark. They posted pictures of the fire on social media. The Netherlands authorities says that over 50% of the nation's 360 species of bee are at threat of dying out, as the population of bees decreases around the world. The beekeeper said that police had told him an accelerant had been employed to burn the hives, which were sitting on pallets in a wooded part of the garden. Barely any of the insects made it through and he said that he had doubt the perpetrator would be caught. Another apiarist a local beekeeper stated on Dutch radio that she had three hives and planned to donate one of them. For Mr Stringer, who cared for the bees for about nine years, the fire means starting a new colony in the park from the beginning. But he insists he will not give up. Similar Events A Million Bees Lost in Deliberate Hive Fire. Honeybees Holland