Charleston, W.V. (AP) -- West Virginia has imported 6 million honeybees from Georgia and 100 tons of corn syrup to replenish and nourish existing colonies.

Agriculture Commissioner Gus R. Douglass says a prolonged drought and late freeze last year sent commercial bee numbers plummeting by about 30 percent. That's two to three times the population loss rate of typical winters.

Lawmakers allocated $200,000 that helped to boost the bee population by about 20 percent.

Douglass says it also enables the state's roughly 960 beekeepers to use their 16,000 colonies for the more lucrative out-of-state crop pollination.

Mites and disease devastated the bee population in the late 1980s. By 1995, the state had fewer than 200 beekeepers with fewer than 2,000 colonies.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)