Atlanta businesses work to rebuild honeybee population

ATLANTA - Atlanta businesses are doing their part to help rebuild the honeybee population.

Georgia Power is one of the most recent to partner with Bee Downtown, a group working to educate communities on the importance of bees in our everyday lives.

"Bees are responsible for about 1/3 of our food," Bee Downtown lead beekeeper Nicholas Weaver said. "They are essential to our agricultural system."

Georgia Power recently added three beehives to their downtown campus.

"We have about 150,000 new employees," Georgia Power Vice President of Environmental and Natural Resources Dr. Mark Berry said. "We are so happy to have them too."

The partnership is part of a much bigger effort to help the honeybee population from continuing to decline. Weaver said through the years, the number of bees has been rapidly declining.

"Beekeepers are losing anywhere from 20-50% of their bees," Weaver said. "This is because of a number of things like lack of habitat and pesticides. This is scary because it directly impacts us."

Weaver said by adding hives to area businesses, the bee population will hopefully start increasing.