Millions of Bees at San Diego Bee Sanctuary Died From Insecticide: Officials

A beekeeper grabs dead bees during a demonstration against the use of bee-killing pesticides in a file photo. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

San Diego agriculture investigators have determined the mysterious death of millions of bees at a bee sanctuary in Escondido was caused by pesticide poisoning.

In 2023, the San Diego Bee Sanctuary, a rescue organization for bees, reported 90 percent of their bees had died.

“Piles and piles of dead bees laid out in front of our hive stands,” the bee sanctuary said on a GoFundMe page created to raise money to help continue operations.

The bee sanctuary ultimately decided to close its Escondido location—however, it still has another location in San Diego. The group suspects the poisoning was intentional, according to an update earlier this month posted on the fundraising website.

“While we’re grateful to know what caused our loss, we’re uneasy about why this happened,” the group wrote.

Last September, a sanctuary worker told the agriculture department they “found dead bees everywhere,” and said they suspected it was from a large-scale pesticide application, according to a report provided to The Epoch Times.

The dead bees were sent to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Center of Analytical Chemistry in Anaheim, California, for pesticide residue testing. Scientists at the center determined that the bees died from fipronil, an insecticide commonly used to kill termites, ants, and other pests that’s known to be toxic to bees. It is banned for use in the food industry in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Dead bees are seen at the San Diego Bee Sanctuary in Escondido, Calif. Paul Gunn/GoFundMe

The department could not determine where the pesticide came from, however.

During the investigation, it identified 23 agricultural growing grounds within one mile of the beehives. Each was contacted and interviewed, but reported no pesticide use that could have harmed the bees, according to the report.

The city also identified a cemetery—Oak Hill memorial Park—located within one mile of the hives, but was told it did not apply any pesticides on its property.

However, General Manager Edward Serna told investigators they began having a problem with bees a few months prior.

“At first, we wanted to let them do their thing and hoped they would fly away, but then they stung one of our landscapers and he ended up in the hospital,” Mr. Serna told investigators, according to the county’s report.

The landscaper was stung more than 50 times, the county reported.

The cemetery called Pinpoint Pest Control Co. Inc. to get rid of the bees that had settled on the cemetery property. Cemetery officials were told by the company they could not remove the bees because they were too aggressive and they would have to kill them, the county reported.

The pest control company did apply a variety of pesticides to kill the bees, according to the report, which did not cite fipronil.

The county’s agriculture department said bees will often visit other unguarded or abandoned hives to obtain food. It was possible the bees from the sanctuary could have visited the poisoned hives at the cemetery and transported the pesticide back to their main colonies, resulting in their deaths, according to the report.

The county issued a violation notice to the pest control company Sept. 26 for failing to provide notification to the cemetery before using pesticides and for not submitting monthly pesticide use reports to the county.

The bee sanctuary has so far raised $12,325 from GoFundMe donations.

“Considerable love, sweat, and bee stings go into our bee rescues and their healthy rehabilitation,” the group wrote on the fundraising site. “This poisoning event has been so devastating to experience.”

About 95 percent of the sanctuary’s 64 bee colonies have now been lost in the poisoning, according to the group.