bees

What are the ways people can attract pollinators to their gardens this spring?

Every October in the backyard of a Bothell home, a team of workers swarm around millions of blue orchard mason bees, to harvest the hibernating bees. The company, Rent Mason Bees, quickly takes apart and cleans the wooden nesting blocks that gardeners and farmers across the state use in the spring to house these tiny pollinators. The company offers this service as part of its mason bee rental program.

(Runtime 4:10)On a warm day in Centralia, Washington, south of Olympia, Alan Woods is standing surrounded by his 90 million bees.“So, we’re in the middle…

(Runtime :55)New research out of Washington State University shows colonies of Northwest bees that fly in warm fall and winter weather are dying more…

Honey bees and other pollinators play a crucial role in helping grow our crops, pollinating one third of the food humans eat each year.But amid habitat…

Scientists have found a dead Asian giant hornet north of Seattle, the first so-called murder hornet discovered in the country this year, federal and state investigators said Wednesday.

Bee colony death continues to rise. According to the Bee Informed Partnership's latest survey, released this week, U.S. beekeepers lost nearly 40% of their honey bee colonies last winter — the greatest reported winter hive loss since the partnership started its surveys 13 years ago.

This beekeeper lost more than half of his hives over the winter — 50,000. And he's not alone.

Bees exposed to a type of insecticides called neonicotinoids dramatically changed their behavior — becoming sluggish, antisocial and spending less time caring for the colony's young, researchers say.

No one knows just what bee species live in Oregon, which means we can't even begin to track if they're declining. A statewide project wants to change that.