Advocates Hope To Bring Urban Beekeeping To Savannah

Georgia residents who want to extract their own honey are allowed to keep bees under state law. That’s not the case in the city of Savannah, where beekeeping has been banned for decades. But a proposal is being considered to change that.

Savannah resident Kenneth Jenkinson is a fan of bees. He says he appreciates their honey - and the impact they have on the environment by pollinating key plants. Jenkinson has kept his own hives for about three years. His challenge is that his beehives are in the town of Midway, miles away from his home. Jenkinson would like to see that change.

"I wouldn’t have to drive 40 miles to go see my bees," he says. "I could have them in my backyard. That’d be great."

Scroll down to see a map of local bee keeping clubs.

Currently, beekeeping is allowed outside the city limits, but not within Savannah. Proposed changes to the city’s animal control ordinance would allow beekeeping under certain regulations. Beekeepers would have to register with the city, for instance, and there are limits on the number of hives based on property size.

Advocates like Greg Stewart hope the city will make the changes. He says bees help everyone by pollinating plants. "Savannah has been growing in all of the community gardens, you can drive around Savannah and see that everywhere," he says. "But if you don’t have the honeybee doing her fair share, you’re looking at a tremendous decline in your vegetables even producing."

Stewart is the president of the Coastal Empire Beekeeper’s Association, which maintains hives at Oatland Island Wildlife Center. He showed those hives to GPB this month.

"This time of the year it’s chilly," he explains, "but if you look in here, you’ll see the honeybees realize that the light is now shining in their hive, so they’re coming up to the surface to investigate."

Stewart removes an inner cover and even more bees appear. They’re moving in a solid mass, crawling over the inside of the box that houses their hive. "If they fly towards you, it’s ok," he says. "They really don’t like dark microphones, but there’s nothing you can do about that right now."

That’s certainly true. Within a few minutes, several dive straight for the mic. Stewart gets three stings on his hand and scalp. He blames it more on the disruption, and the cold weather, than on honeybees attacking people.

Beekeeper Greg Stewart shows the stinger from one of the bees that stung him during GPB's visit to the hives. (Photo courtesy Emily Jones)

Savannah resident Bobbie Renee Stringer says the idea of a neighbor keeping bees makes her nervous. "I guess the whole thing would be whether they could control having the actual bees," she says, "making them docile and not just roaming around and having lots of bee stinging of children and other people."

Savannah-Chatham Animal Control would enforce beekeeping regulations for the city. Speaking to the city council last year, Animal Control Operations officer Christina Sutherin voiced concerns as well. "Bees aren’t bad," she told Council. "The honeybees are good, perhaps not in people’s backyards that are very close in proximity to one another."

In video of that presentation to City Council, found on the city’s website, Sutherin also expressed concern for residents with bee sting allergies. And she says honeybees are known to travel 12 square miles from their hives to gather pollen.

But advocates believe the more people learn about beekeeping, the more their concerns tend to go away. Nearly two years ago, at the request of the Savannah City Manager, members of the task force that wrote the new ordinance met with some of the city’s neighborhood associations.

Task force chair Blake Caldwell says they explained that the proposed ordinance calls for a docile type of bee, often less likely to sting than those already wild in the city. "We took a show-of-hand votes," she says, "and it was overwhelmingly always supported by the end of our conversation."

Caldwell says of the 17 groups they met with, only one didn’t support beekeeping after the meeting. She says she’s been assured the ordinance will come before City Council again this year. She says she’s met with most Council members believes it will pass.

If you'd like to find bee keepers in your area, see the map below of bee keeping associations provided by the Georgia Beekeeper's Association.

Tags: bees, beekeeping, Savannah, city of savannah, Chatham County, urban beekeeping, Local Food, honey, oatland island wildlife center