​A beekeeper has been left devastated after thieves stole a tractor and deliberately drove over a set of hives, killing an estimated 200,000 honey bees.

David Barriball said he was appalled at the wanton act of vandalism, which destroyed the colonies he had spent four years building up.

He said: “I am passionate about beekeeping and to have this happen has left me devastated. I just can’t believe that anybody would do this.

“They drove over the hives and some of them they obviously drove over a couple of times.

“I can’t understand why anyone would do this.”

Mr Barriball was a keen beekeeper during his teenage years and took up the hobby again when he retired four years ago.

The 65-year-old apiarist built all his own hives and keeps several colonies dotted around farms near his home in Liskeard.

This particular colony was worth an estimated £3,500. With help from his daughter, Sarah Kitson, Mr Barriball sells his produce under the brand name Tamar Gold.

On Thursday he received a call from a farmer at Trerulefoot where eight hives were being kept during the bees’ largely dormant period in the winter months.

“I was told that a tractor had been stolen in the early hours of the morning earlier in the week,” said Mr Barriball.

“They decided to go joyriding round the field at 2 or 3am and destroyed the hives.”

Mr Barriball said the bees would not have abandoned the queen and would have remained in the wreckage of the hives, dying slowly in the cold.

“The bees would have been dying slowly for three days because of the cold nights. They will not leave the queen so they would basically stay there and die,” he said.

Matt Pitt, editor of the beekeeping magazine An Hess – Cornish for the swarm – and a member of the West Cornwall Bee Keepers Association, said the loss would seriously affect local pollination in spring.

He said: “Honey bees are the only pollinators who over-winter as a colony so pollination within a couple of miles will be seriously impacted. After the decimation of colonies by the varroa mite, insecticides and the loss of meadow lands, any loss is significant.”

Mr Pitt, who lives in Praze an Beeble and produces honey through his Praze Bee company, knows all about the anxiety of checking hives in distant farmer’s fields.

“This is just totally mindless and I cannot understand why anyone would do such a thing – bees are struggling enough without idiots charging around destroying colonies,” he added.