The bees that Sarah was going to pick up at the airport were in Atlanta, and she got the sense of a disaster.
She said in an interview that the first shipment of 200 crates of bees was the first of two that would come in from Sacramento to provide pollination services for apple orchards and nurseries.
The previous honeybee shipments were made their way to Alaska via Delta Air Lines flights from Sacramento to Seattle and then on to Anchorage. The shipment did not fit on the Seattle-bound flight and was diverted to the Delta hub in Atlanta. The bees would arrive in Alaska on Saturday.
The bees have to be fed along the way and they have to be kept cool. Millions of bees would die and her concerns were correct.
Catherine Morrow, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an email that Delta has "engaged the appropriate internal teams to take immediate action to ensure events of this nature do not occur in the future."
The spokeswoman for Alaska Public Media said that they had apologized to the customer directly.
Honeybees are not native to Alaska. Many of the bees she imports to local backyard bees are used for pollination services.
Jimmy Gatt, a certified beekeeper and president of the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association, said in an interview on Thursday that pesticides have decimated the world's native pollinators.
Pollinated crops such as blueberries, cranberries, oranges, almonds, watermelons, are dependent on commercial beekeepers.
Apple orchards and nurseries depend on bee shipments to pollinate their crops and have an abundant spring and fall harvest.
People don't understand how dependent we are on honeybees for pollination.
Delta was the only airline that could ship her bees, so it put the bees in a cooler while she was in Atlanta.
The shipment of bees would have to wait another day because the aircraft that was to transport them was unable to secure the crates.
On Sunday, she got another call. She was told that the bees had been removed from the cooler and put on the tarmac because they might have escaped from the crates. The bees were too hot to be outside that day. The bees attracted native bees in the area, making it hard to get near the packages.
She would have to get the bees or leave them outside.
They are dying in the East Coast and I am in Alaska. She was looking for a solution when she called the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association's swarm hotline. She was connected with Edward Morgan by the swarm commander, Dave Marshall.
Mr. Morgan, who says he always gets the "bee odd job", went to the airport with food and bees. Mr. Morgan said that by the time he got to the airport, 25 percent of Ms. McElrea's honeybees had already died of heat and starvation.
The bees couldn't reach their food because the containers had been placed upside down. Mr. Morgan decided that the best course of action would be to get the few remaining bees and give them away.
Mr. Gatt and Mr. Morgan sent emails to members of the Georgia Beekeepers Association and the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association to let them know that there were free bees at the airport.
Mr. Morgan said about 25 people showed up. They broke through the packages to see if any bees could be saved. As the beekeepers examined the packages, they saw piles of thousands, then millions of lifeless bodies.
Julia Mahood, a Georgia Master Beekeeper, said it was devastating to see so many dead bees.
Mr. Morgan and Mr. Gatt said that it was difficult to know how many bees survived since not all the packages were thoroughly examined.
Mr. Morgan thought he would help the woman get her bees on the plane. The bee community came together. Everyone was trying to make sure the bees got a home.
She plans to file a claim with Delta to get reimbursed for the $48,000 loss because livestock travel is not covered by insurance.
The worst part for me was how they suffered, and there was no one I could do anything about it.
To avoid another tragedy, Ms. McElrea and her husband are going to fly to Seattle and then drive to Sacramento to pick up the replacements. The bees will be flown to Alaska by the McElreas.
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