OCBC Meeting 

Monday, July 20th 2026

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Doors open at 6:30pm

Meeting Begins at 7pm  

@

Farm Bureau 925 Athens Road
Crawford, GA 30630

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Topic: Bee-Yond Honey Bees:  Meet Your Native Bees

Honey bees are incredibly important to our agricultural system – we couldn’t enjoy many of our favorite foods without them! But like many of us, they're not native to our state -- or even to North America for that matter! This fully illustrated presentation will introduce you to a few of the more than 500 species of bees that are native to Georgia. Find out how native bees like bumble bees, mason bees, leaf cutter bees, sweat bees and carpenter bees are similar to --  and different from -- their better known honey bee cousins. Learn where these vitally important pollinators live, what they do, how they survive, and how to tell them apart. Finally, we'll touch on issues of competition, pathogen spill-over, and whether honey bees can negatively impact the species success of native bees.

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Speaker: Peter Helfrich

He is a backyard beekeeper and native bee enthusiast who lives in Decatur, GA. He is a past president of the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association, and currently chairs City of Decatur’s Bee City USA® program. He frequently speaks about bees in the Decatur schools and helps to organize the city’s annual National Pollinator Week festival. In 2023, he was recognized  as a Decatur Hometown Hero for his work on behalf of pollinators, and was named the Georgia Beekeepers Association’s 2024 Beekeeper of the Year.