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SIOUX CITY — A couple who manufacture and sell honey are feeling the sting after their Sioux City operation was vandalized overnight, killing at least half a million bees.

Justin and Tori Engelhardt, the owners of Wild Hill Honey, went to go dust the snow off 50 hives stored in a grove on their 18 1/2 acre property on Sioux City’s west side around 10 a.m. Thursday.

As they approached the area where the hives were kept, Justin Engelhardt noticed their beekeeping supplies shed had been ransacked.

He feared that whoever committed the act had done much worse, a thought that unfortunately came true for the apiarist.

“They knocked over every single hive, killing all the bees. They wiped us out completely,” Engelhardt said. “They broke into our shed, they took all our equipment out and threw it out in the snow, smashed what they could. Doesn’t look like anything was stolen, everything was just vandalized or destroyed.

Engelhardt called the crime “completely senseless.”

He and his wife started Wild Hill Honey about six years ago after he became interested in bees after hearing an interview with world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley on National Public Radio.