An Ottawa couple is asking the public for help locating about 30,000 bees that they say were stolen over the Christmas holiday and are now feared dead.

Marianne and Matt Gee run a business that rents hives to businesses and homeowners that want to make their own honey.

When Matt Gees recently went to check on a wooden pallet that’s home to two hives and about 30,000 bees, it was nowhere to be found.

“If it starts getting cold and you start shaking the bees around, their cluster’s going to break up and the bees probably don’t have a very good chance of surviving,” he said.

The couple filed a police report and are still holding out hope their bees can be brought home alive.

“I’m hoping somebody saw them in truck going out of here or down the road,” Marianne Gees said. “We really want to bring them home.”

Although the financial loss isn’t great, the Gees said the missing hives are a hit to a fragile species that they are trying to help build up.

“We have bears and mites and pesticides and crazy weather,” said Marianne Gees. “And now we have to worry about people stealing beehives.”

With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Annie Bergeron-Oliver