April 30, 2013 | NW Public Radio, by Tom Banse
For about seven years, many Western beekeepers have been plagued by unexplained die-offs in their hives. It happened recently to Mark Emrich.
“I was doing great until about five weeks ago,” he says. “Then I came down and opened up the hives and I had five dead boxes of bees. That was a huge hit.”
He lost one third of his production on his small farm near Olympia.