Bee warned. Anyone thinking of pilfering honey from a Waihola stall is likely to be stung.

After falling prey to a sticky-fingered honey thief in February, Otago Gold Honey co-owner Carlee McCaw said the power of community, and a good set of security cameras, helped bring the alleged offender to justice.

‘‘It was pretty overwhelming, the community support — we had a huge amount of help from the public and the police.’’

On February 18, a blonde woman brazenly helped herself to armfuls of honey and eggs for the last time after visiting the Ms McCaw’s roadside stall in Waihola five or six times over a two-year period.

The eggs she helped herself to came from a local primary school-aged child who was selling them for pocket money.

However, after posting very clear pictures of the alleged thief to social media, going to police and speaking to the Otago Daily Times, the offender was quickly identified.

Ms McCaw said the case was now with police.

‘‘We don’t put pictures of people up on social media unless we’re pretty positive that we’re going to be able to get an ID — it’s really got to be definitive for us that they have actually taken something.’’

She said she had a roughly 99% success rate and only one person had escaped justice.

‘‘We noticed that the first couple of times that we put things up on social media we noticed a massive drop-off in just little bits going missing — it does make a difference and I think it also makes a difference that the police are so proactive about it.’’

Most roadside vendors nationwide would have similar problems with thefts, Ms McCaw said, and she had tips for prevention.

‘‘Don’t assume the police aren’t interested … what we’ve found is that the people that are doing this, they’re not just doing it to us, and it’s often representative of a pattern of behaviour and it’s all about evidence gathering for the police.’’

She said reporting the first theft to police was nerve-racking.

However, usually they would find that once they reported the theft, they were ‘‘fifth in line’’ in terms of victims, and definitive video evidence was often the nail in the coffin.

‘‘We’ve invested quite a bit in our security cameras — it’s a long-term thing for us in that for every person that we catch we view it as a direct contribution to our security system.’’