The NYPD's recently retired bee expert is lashing out at his former bosses, saying that he was driven out of the department by a culture of incompetence and cronyism—and allegations that he was stealing bees.

Until he stepped down in August, 2014, Anthony "Tony Bees" Planakis was a fixture in the news, turning up wherever there was a swarm as the Police Department's one-man bee-containment unit. But he says that a 2012 promotion from former police commissioner Ray Kelly stoked jealousy, or what he describes as tall-poppy syndrome, among his bosses, leading to the theft accusations. When responding to calls about swarming bees, Planakis would often box or vacuum up the insects, and he said that he did take them home, but that he would never integrate the street bees into the carefully kept hive in his backyard in Forest Hills.

"I wouldn't want them because I don't know where they came from, who had them, are they diseased? I don't know," he said. "I'm not gonna sit there and put them in with the possibility of destroying my hive."

Instead, he said he handed the bees off to trusted beekeepers, and that he never took a dime. Technically, the boxed-up bees would have been department property, but there was no one else qualified to handle them, and no procedure in place, he said. So when his bosses accused him of profiting off the pollinators, Planakis was pissed.

"They said, technically I was stealing," he said. "I looked around and I said, 'Hey, no problem! I'll walk into the closest precinct and throw [the box full of bees] on the sergeant's desk and say, here, voucher this. It's found property.' This is the idiots that I was dealing with."

Without the friction, he said, there would have been no reason to retire.

"I'm 53 years old and I live six minutes from work—why would I leave?" he said.

Planakis said he had a similar experience in the mid-2000s, when he was placed on a "punishment post," answering phones at the Building Maintenance Section for two and a half years for having a disagreement with a favorite of a superior, though Planakis had no disciplinary record.

A former coworker, who asked to remain anonymous because he still works with the NYPD, corroborated the story, saying Planakis didn't steal, but higher-ups would publicly say "anything to get his goat."

"There were certain individuals there that were cliquish," he said. "If they didn’t like an individual, they would dump this guy’s dirty laundry on the table."

The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The New York Post reported that three officers are interviewing to take over the department's bee-response duties. Asked if anyone on the force can fill his shoes, Planakis told Gothamist, "Not that I've met."

Pollen pollen everywhere!!! Olivarez bees!! Unbee-lievable!!! pic.twitter.com/TgIVFbsrEm — Anthony Planakis (@tonybees) April 14, 2015

Now that he is retired, Planakis said he should have listened to the advice of his father, who taught him beekeeping as a boy, and not mixed business and beekeeping. He said he is still not profiting from his hobby—he offers free beekeeping classes because "real beekeepers do not charge"—but he does sell honey here and there to recoup the cost of maintaining his hives.

"I'm just drifting off into obscurity right now, and that's it," he said. "I've got my hobby in my backyard—actually, it's my passion."