Srinagar, Sept. 4 -- By Anuj Kumar Verma

Rahul Rathore remembers when his hives hummed with 350 colonies, stacked in neat rows outside Batote, each box producing honey he could sell with confidence and pride.

Seven years later, only about 100 colonies remain.

The rest died somewhere between here and Rajasthan, poisoned by pesticide-laced fields, battered by strange temperature swings, and picked apart by a beetle that science still cannot control.

"We started strong," Rathore said, describing the winter migrations that once sustained his operation.

Now those same journeys, undertaken so bees can find forage during Kashmir's frozen months, have become the biggest threat to his livelihood.

Farmers spraying chemicals may never see the ...