It was such a strange feeling to walk up to the hives and know someone had been in them. I was so afraid that irreparable damage had been done. All three of my hives had been opened. The first one had a bunch of squished dead bees under the lid. The second had the two covers askew. Neither of these hives had any frames missing.
The third hive, though ... the cover was askew, one of the inner covers was on the ground, the cover was propped open with a bowie knife the perpetrator forgot and left. There was a role of paper on the ground that the perp had used as a smoker. Somewhere between one and four frames had been taken.
We looked through the hive, and found the queen.
I'm angry that my hives were violated, but so glad it was just someone who wanted honey, not someone who wanted to wreck havoc on the hives.
The bees were really defensive. You can see the bees all over 3Reds in the first picture. I'm hoping the perp is sporting lots of stings, swelling and itching to last another week.