I guess I missed the first posting..
I have seen this on a smaller scale when they pull the bees from the blueberry fields in Maine. THose fellows didnt leave anything behind to "collect" bees, and in fact left several boxes the bears had torn open as well.. I was not impressed, but its not about the bees, its about the money, and time is money to them..
I didnt go north to help PICK blueberries, I went to help put together hives. We usually ended up with anywhere from ten to twenty hives by the end of the day...
I stopped helping when I realized, they used these bees to get HONEY... and let the bees die, and the next year they get more bees when the pollinators leave.. their cost is ordering fifteen to twenty queens every year... then they get about a thousand pounds of honey to sell, by taking ALL of it, so the bees starve to death each winter... Not cool, I wanted no more part of that. afaik they are still doing it to this day.
A pretty easy racket, if you dont care about the bees.