A Dutch beekeeper, Harold Stringer, has expressed profound shock and sorrow after 10 of his beehives were deliberately set ablaze in Beatrixpark, Almere, resulting in the loss of approximately half a million bees. The incident, which occurred on Tuesday evening, has left the local community and environmental advocates deeply concerned. Stringer, who has been tending to bees for nearly a decade, described the act as ‘horrific,’ emphasizing that each hive housed a colony of 40,000 to 60,000 bees. Police in Almere, a city located east of Amsterdam, have launched an investigation and are appealing for witnesses. They shared images of the fire on social media, highlighting the severity of the arson attack. Authorities revealed that an accelerant was used to ignite the hives, which were placed on pallets in a wooded area of the park. Sadly, almost none of the bees survived. Stringer expressed skepticism about the perpetrator being caught but vowed to rebuild his bee colony from scratch. Fellow beekeeper Heleen Nieman offered to donate one of her three bee colonies to support him. The incident underscores the broader crisis facing bees in the Netherlands, where over half of the country’s 360 bee species are at risk of extinction due to declining populations worldwide.