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Beekeepers Guild Hosts Celebration Of Honeybees At Center City Hotel

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The hard-working honeybee was honored with a day celebrating its many contributions.

National Honeybee Awareness Day is August 20, but on Wednesday evening members of the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild held a gala at the Sofitel Hotel in Center City.

Don Shump, the president of the Guild, explained the importance of honeybees and the steep decline in their colonies over the last decade.

"The reason why it's so significant is that the honeybees are really the lynchpin of our entire agricultural system," Shump said.

Kathy May, a beekeeper in Philadelphia, says pesticides and lack of forage are just a few of the reasons why bee numbers are shrinking.

"Our food table, our dinner table, our breakfast table wouldn't look the same if we didn't have the honey bees," May said. "About a third of all the foods, fruits and vegetables that we consume are really reliant on the honeybee for the pollination."

She says there are different ways we can all help restore the country's bee population.

"Plant a tree, help a bee," May said. "That's my personal little motto."

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