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Rodney Dillinger is looking for a swarm of 40,000 honeybees after a coup d'état that left one of his hives half empty. In a storyline that could have been written by Shakespeare, some of Mr. Dillinger's bees are suspected of having become dissatisfied with their queen, tricking her into giving birth to a replacement and then sending her into exile.

The deposed queen left in the past few days, followed by about half the bees in the southwestern Nova Scotia colony. Mr. Dillinger, a retiree who has only four hives, wants his bees back and has asked police for help.

[...]

Queen bees are typically overthrown by workers who feel they are not getting enough of what Tony Phillips, president of the Nova Scotia Beekeepers Association, calls "queen substance."

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