He’s been working with bees for 40 years, but David Neel of Freeland has never been stung like this.

Somebody entered the field north of Coupeville where his beehives are set up and made off with several thousand dollars’ worth of fresh honey, Neel said Monday.

“It was just blatant and cut and dried, and could only be a theft,” he said. “And the way it was done tells me a beekeeper did it.”

Neel, two years into a commercial venture he’s trying to nurture, has about 100 beehives scattered from one end of Whidbey Island to the other to take advantage of the season’s wild berries.

This is the first time honey has been stolen from his hives on the island, he said. “This is a new event for me.”

The missing honey was in 16 hives of two stacks each set up at Lavender Wind Farm on Darst Road between Coupeville and Oak Harbor.

“About a month ago, they were completely full of honey almost ready to harvest,” Neel said. “When I checked them last week, they were completely empty.”

Well, not completely. Each hive contains 10 trays, Neel said. Some honey was left in the top levels, to make it look as if the hives hadn’t been touched.

But the rest of his trays in the hives had been taken, and replaced with empties, many of which had never been used for collecting honey, Neel said.

“At first glance, they looked to be okay,” he said of his hives. “But they weren’t stacked the way I left them.”

The result was more than 150 missing trays filled with honey, which Neel had planned to put in jars and sell — the work of thousands and thousands of bees gone for good, at least as far as Neel is concerned.

“The bees looked fine,” Neel said with some relief. “They didn’t try to take the bees themselves.”

Neel said he filed a report with the Island County Sheriff’s Office, but was told there probably was nothing that could be done unless additional incidents were reported.

Neel said that he expects his stolen honey will be put in jars and peddled — and the jars won’t be carrying his labels.

He said the poor economy may have had something to do with the theft, but added: “They probably wanted a product to sell.”

Neel, 46, owner of Island Apiaries, became interested in bees when he was 6 years old, thanks to a beekeeper uncle.

“He thought it was time I put on the suit,” Neel said.

For two years, Neel has been collecting honey commercially, putting it in jars and selling it at several farmers markets and retail outlets on the island.

He also keeps about 200 hives off-island, mostly for bee cultivation, while focusing his honey harvesting on Whidbey, he said.

Neel hopes eventually to have 500 hives, and said that next year he may also hire some extra help. So far, he’s been doing all the work himself, driving from Clinton to Oak Harbor in his brown truck with the bee decals — and sometimes real bees — sticking to the sides.

Besides jars of honey, he also sells honeycombs, along with items made from beeswax, such as candles.

“Anything my bees can produce, I package and sell,” he said.

Neel typically repays landowners who let him set up his hives with 10 percent of the honey harvest.

“Even in a bad year, I can usually scrape together five gallons,” Neel said.

He said the theft of his honey is particularly galling because it takes so much effort just to keep the bees focused.

He said that thanks to Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon in which worker bees abruptly disappear, beekeepers nationwide often lose

90 percent of their honey bee populations.

“To be so concerned about your bees, and to have a healthy crop, then to have something like this happen, it feels like no matter what you do, you’re just doomed,” Neel said of the theft.

He said he hopes a little publicity will produce some results.

“Maybe somebody out there knows something,” he said.

Neel can be reached at 331-1905 or by e-mailing david@islandapiaries.com.