Beekeeper Sentenced For Releasing Bees On Cops Trying To Perform Eviction

There are plenty of ways to interfere with police action, but one woman has been jailed with what could be crowned the most unique one.

A beekeeper in Massachusetts, trying to prevent police from carrying out an eviction on her friend from a $1.5M home, released swarms of bees on the officers who showed up to serve the paperwork.

Rebecca Woods insisted to officers that she only released her truckload of hives to allow the bees to take advantage of the “lovely, flowering landscape” near the home of an elderly friend and cancer patient.

Under questioning in court this week, the 59-year-old beekeeper admitted she was trying to save him from eviction by letting the bees loose on the deputies at the house.

Several officers were stung on their heads and faces, and one officer had to be taken to the hospital.

In footage released by the sheriff's office, deputies are heard shouting "Hey!" at Woods and one saying “She’s opening the bees!”

Deputies can be seen frantically waving their arms, trying to make the insects go away.

Woods showed up to the house with her beekeeper suit on, having driven up to the house with the hives stacked on the trailer pulled behind her SUV.

She hopped out, pulled the lids off the hives.

Deputies grabbed her, and wrestled her down to the ground. Thousands of the bees died in the encounter, between hives being toppled over during the struggle and the bees dying after stinging the deputies.

During the story being told at the hearing, it came out that some of the deputies had mentioned being allergic. Woods heard that and said “Oh, you’re allergic? Good!”

She said that the reason she decided to intervene was because she'd had many friends evicted from their homes, and this friend was a man in his 80s undergoing cancer treatment.

Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi said “We don’t just show up to enforce an order. We try to help people through difficult situations. That commitment doesn’t change, even in the face of something like this.”