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RIDE THE
WEEKEND
2-day weekend pass
now for just $10.50.
You and your family can enjoy Atlanta’s many attractions & events
with unlimited rides on all buses & trains for only $10.50 per person.
The 25 % discounted passes are available for purchase until June 30, 2017,
but you can use your Weekend Passes for any weekend you have planned!
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Photo by Monica Sheppard
From left, Denise Champagne, Jim Williamson, Andi Beyer and Ramsey Cook look forthe queen bee.
The BeeShees: Carrying
on a Family Tradition
Who doesn’t love honey? It’s an easily digestible, pure food
considered by some to be one of nature’s best all-round remedies. If I’m
not feeling well, a cup of hot tea with honey will always make me feel
better. Even just a spoonful of honey improves my outlook on life.
So, I was supremely disappointed when a beautiful, amber-
colored jar of honey that I selected during a holiday gift exchange
last year was “stolen” from me, per the rules of the Dirty Santa
game. Luckily, my beekeeper friend Monica Sheppard, who
provided the gift for the game, noted my disappointment; she
surprised me with my own jar a few months later. Every time I taste
a spoonful, I think of her carefully-tended bees, foraging for nectar
in flowers growing in the fields and woodlands near her home.
Monica is one of the BeeShees: four women (including her
daughter Ramsey) who have kept honey bees for many years on
property near Rome, Georgia. Carrying on a family tradition — her
father kept more than fifty hives in locations from their backyard
in Tucker to north Georgia — Monica has taught her daughter the
joys and challenges of being an organic beekeeper in a world with a
changing climate and growing pesticide use.
Warmer winters mean that the bees are more active and must be
fed by their keepers, due to the lack of natural food. Pesticides used
on nearby corn fields may be the reason that the BeeShees have lost
several hives. Parasites can also cause a bee colony to collapse and
changing land use patterns can lead to malnutrition.
While honey bees are obviously essential to the production
of honey, their most important role is as pollinators for fruits
and vegetables that we love to eat: apples, oranges, blueberries,
strawberries, cherries, cranberries, cantaloupes, lemons and limes,
avocados, almonds, onions, broccoli and more. They all depend
directly or indirectly on this tiny non-native species; bees were
brought to the United States from Europe by early settlers.
Pollinators transfer pollen and seeds from one flower to another,
fertilizing the plant so it can grow and produce food. Cross
pollination helps at least thirty percent of the world’s crops and ninety
percent of our wild plants to thrive. Yet, in the United States alone,
where crops pollinated by bees are worth at least $ 15 billion per year, a
the managed honey bee population has disappeared in recent decades, according to experts.
Beginning in 2006, beekeepers began to report that bees were abandoning their hives,
never to return: a condition known as colony collapse disorder. At the peak of the crisis,
forty-five percent of hives were lost in one year. While there is evidence that these collapses
may be dwindling, honey bees — and our food supply — remain threatened by climate
change, pesticides, parasites and habitat disruption.
EIow can we help our honey bees? Elere are a few ideas from Metro Atlanta Beekeepers
Association (metroatlantabeekeepers.org):
• Allow a little wildness to creep back into your yard with dandelions and clover.
• Plant native wildflowers from seeds if possible, instead of hybrids
(nursery plants grown with pesticides).
• Get the BeeSmart app on your phone to help in plant selection.
• Eliminate garden pesticides and move to organic gardening.
• Leave some bare patches of soil for ground-dwelling bees — a little mud is good!
• Support your local beekeepers, like the BeeShees (beeshees.bigcartel.com). OH
ABOVE
THE
WATER
LINE
By Sally Bethea
Sally Bethea is the
retired executive
director of Chat
tahoochee Riverkeeper
(chattahoochee. org),
a nonprofit environ
mental organization
whose mission is to
protect and restore the
drinking water supply
for nearly four million
people.
quarter to a third of
28 May 2017 | [d
AtlantalNtownPaper.com