In April, millions of honeybees bound for Anchorage died after they were diverted from Sacramento to Atlanta and then left out in the sun. Here's what happened to the survivors, and what one woman did to help Alaska beekeepers recover from the loss.
Bill Crumpler holds up a honeycomb to examine the bees’ state from a hive rescued from the tarmac of Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport a month before, when a shipment of millions of bees meant for Alaska was diverted from California.
While the rescue attempt happened in Atlanta, Sarah McElrea was waiting at the Anchorage airport when she heard most of the bees had died. McElrea sells bees and teaches classes from her home in Soldotna. She was gutted by the tragedy. And it also took a huge financial toll. They had to get creative to keep them cool. McElrea’s husband made a makeshift pipe to get cold air to the bees in the back of two rental vans. They drove to Seattle and made sure the bees were carefully loaded on the flight back to Alaska.“Boy, what a sigh of relief,” McElrea said. “It was an incredible feeling to be back on the ground in Alaska. The sense of relief is pretty indescribable.”
“You just look forward to kind of catching up with Sarah and what’s going on in the bee world, ‘cause she knows what’s going on,” Allemann said. “[She’s] so dedicated. I mean, when you see what she went through this year to get bees up here for us — that’s way beyond the call of duty.”
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