In the past week, there’s been two high-profile and rather unusual thefts in the Fraser Valley. One was the theft of aproximately 8,000lbs of honey and a half-million bees from a beekeeper. The other was the theft of 5,200 bottles of wine from Blackwood Lane winery in Langley, not thirty minutes away from the beekeeper’s. Obviously, this scale of larceny is the work of sophisticated criminals with access to heavy machinery, an inside knowledge of the respective industries, and a long-term plan for profit.
It also exactly parallels the crime perpetrated in Skyrim, making the suspected ringleader Maven Blackbriar.
Pictured: The face of evil.
I can’t possibly be the only one who’s noticed this, unless I’m Batman. In the game, Skyrim, there’s a quest chain for the Thieves Guild where you have to do Maven Blackbriar’s dirty work. As a quest giver, she has you sabotage a honey farm and they a rival meadery, so her own line of Blackbriar Mead can flourish. This involves breaking into a honey farm and stealing certain items while burn bee hives, while ensuring that the farm can remain productive. Then you have to break into a meadery and poison the spirits therein, and then in the ensuing chaos take over the entire operation and amalgamate it with Blackbriar’s.
Stranger still, in the weeks before the honey farm robbery, I had the exact same idea for a crime. That’s not to say I was going to be the one perpetrating it, but at work (I work at a hardware store that will remain nameless), several people were complaining about a millionaire beekeeper who kept coming in and bothering everyone with his extremely frugal and over-demanding ways. My one co-worker told me he had him sift through over a hundred pieces of plywood, each weighing well over sixty pounds or more, to find him fifteen sheets worthy of his purchase. Another told me that she’d dealt with him before at a Habitat for Humanity store, where items were already offered at rock-bottom clearance prices, but he still demanded an unreasonable amount of attention and unwarranted discounts. That made me think to myself: why would a man who flaunts his riches make so many enemies, and be as cheap as Mr.Crabs from Spongebob Squarepants at the same time? Especially when he’s in a business that’s so easily destroyed. I’ve read all about the phenomenon known as colony collapse affecting beekeepers the world over. The smallest infestation can wipe out a man’s livelihood, but why would one resort to that when there’s such lucrative profit to be made in simply stealing the bees for one’s self? With colony collapse, the price of honey is rising. People are even willing to pay top dollar for what’s essentially honey-flavoured corn syrup out of China by way of Indonesia, and articles on Cracked.com have told me how easy it is to disguise psuedo-honey as the real thing. Abbotsford borders Chilliwack, which boast some of the best corn in all of Canada, if not the world.
Stealing bees is an easy thing, if you’ve ever seen the movie, “Bees.” A little smoke and they’re out like a light. After that, you can do what you want with them.
I’d be impressed if these two crimes were by the same criminal, because to me they’d be operating at Batman villain levels. Anyone can steal cold, hard cash. Stealing tonnes of honey and wine is the work of someone who either intends to black market their own product, or else keep it for their own enjoyment. I’m imagining swimming pools filled with honey and booze, and the ensuing rap video they create.
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