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Vandals killed thousands of bees in a wrecking spree and then signed a name to the crime.

They destroyed 20 hives owned by Heather Hills Farm, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage and potentially killing up to 200,000 bees.

They rampaged through the site, near Guildtown, Perthshire, throwing rocks at the hives and scrawling slogans, including an “anti-bee” symbol.

The blow comes just weeks after the farm, which has its headquarters at Bridge of Cally, launched an adopt a bee scheme to raise awareness of declining numbers of honey bees. The farm, which was founded in 1945, has already been forced to battle poor summers and harsh winters which have seen its population cut by half prior to the attack.

Managing director Mark Noonan said the damage was discovered on Thursday but may have occurred any time after May 1. He added it was too early to tell how many of the hives had been killed off due to the vandals.

He said: “The beekeepers were going round checking the bees to make sure they are not starving because the weather’s been so rubbish that the bees haven’t been able to get out and there’s not a lot of blossom for them to feed on.

“It was the last site that they went to at the end of the day and they were clearing away some branches on the entrance to the site and they saw graffiti on the trees. They thought that was a bit strange but when they got to the site they found that 20 hives had been vandalised, with bees all over the place.

“A lot of the brood will have been exposed, which will have frosted over overnight and died, so the strength of the hives will definitely have been knocked back but we won’t know until next week how many hives we’ve actually lost.

“If we lose the queen then the hive will just die away and if there’s not enough bees left to keep the queen warm then she’ll die.”

Although Mark was initially angered by the damage, he says he now wants to teach the culprits about the importance of maintaining bee colonies.

He said: “If I got hold of them I would educate them. I would take them out to the bees and explain that without the bees we haven’t got much of a life. They are a very important part of the food chain.

“They can take out their anger on someone else, but not the bees.”

He added that, had the hives not been weakened by poor weather, the bees would have carried out their own revenge on the culprits.

“Unfortunately the hives were just not strong enough to give the culprits a good stinging, or we would have found them by now,” Mark said.

The police confirmed they were investigating.