Tens of thousands of bees dead after fire set at Beaver County honey farm

INDUSTRY, Pa. — If you stop in at the Bedillion Honey Farm shop in Hickory, Washington County, you can buy all sorts of products like beeswax candles and local raw honey.

Nearly all of the products are sourced from local bees at nearby bee yards.

One of the Bedillion bee yards is in Industry, Beaver County.

On Thursday, the family went to check on that bee yard and found it had been burned and destroyed, killing thousands of bees.

“It’s just sad,” said Lily Bedillion of Bedillion Honey Farm. “They were just getting ready for the spring, and to know the weather was getting warmer, and they were getting more prepared, and to see them all dead like that? It was heartbreaking to say the least.”

Lilly and her father, Mark Bedillion, did a check of their bee yard in Industry on Thursday. It’s one of 25 they have around the region.

They found tens of thousands of honey bees burned to death.

They had between 30 and 60 beehives on pallets, and all of them were destroyed.

“Some of the spots were just black ash where they used to stand,” said Sara Bedillion, owner. “Then there was another pile where they had dragged some of it and made a bigger fire in the pile there. Very little remained.”

The bee yard is on private property in the woods, not easy to find.

“It’s off in the woods,” Bedillion said. “You have to travel way down a wooded path to get to them, so somebody had to trespass pretty deeply to get to them in the first place.”

In the nearly 22 years the Bedillion family has been in business, they’ve never had something like this happen.

They filed a police report and are offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest. Information regarding the case can be reported to the Bedillions by calling or texting 724-747-4645.

The family said it’s a lot of work and will cost a lot to rebuild, but they’ll adapt.

“Knock on wood, I hope that they can come back,” Bedillion said. “The bees are tough, and they work really quickly if you give them the right environment to work in. So, it’s just more work. That’s all.”

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