During her career in advertising and marketing, Deb DeWitt developed an interest in beekeeping but postponed pursuing it due to professional and family commitments. After leaving the corporate world, she took a one-day class with the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association, which introduced her to the basics of beekeeping. DeWitt then began caring for bees at home, facing common challenges such as colony health issues and pests.
DeWitt found support through mentors and participation in local bee clubs and conferences. “I fell in love with honey bees and all things related. There is an innate spirituality in keeping bees,” she said. “Once I put the veil on, life slows to a standstill and becomes a walking meditation into a delicately complex and endlessly fascinating world.”
She noted similarities between creative work in marketing and beekeeping: “Like any creative endeavor, beekeepers must be keenly observant,” DeWitt explained. “We have to think outside the box, pivot quickly, anticipate problems, and plan ahead.”
As she gained experience, DeWitt expanded her activities by establishing apiaries at several schools around metro Atlanta as well as other locations including Chattahoochee Hills, Grant Park, Brookhaven, Arabia Mountain, and Brevard in North Carolina. She achieved Master Beekeeper certification from Cornell University and served as central regional director for the Georgia Beekeepers Association. Her outreach included teaching incarcerated individuals through the Georgia Department of Corrections and working with tree companies to rescue wild colonies.
These experiences led to her appointment as Georgia Tech’s 2025 Beekeeper in Residence with the Urban Honey Bee Project—a one-year position supporting campus hives at The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design.
The Urban Honey Bee Project is an interdisciplinary effort involving Georgia Tech’s College of Sciences and Office of Sustainability that supports campus bee colonies while mentoring students. Jennifer Leavey, assistant dean for faculty mentoring at the College of Sciences and director of the project said: “Deb did so much this year — working closely with the Beekeeping Club, keeping our hives healthy, and even rehoming a wild hive from a dead tree on campus. Most importantly, Deb showed our students how an expert beekeeper approaches hive care. She took every opportunity to include them, and it made a real impact.”
Alyssa Zhang, an undergraduate student at Georgia Tech added: “The Beekeeping Club loved working with Deb. She was always happy to teach us — whether it was managing Varroa mites last summer, when she helped reduce counts from 17% to below 1%, or preparing the hives for winter.”
DeWitt described some key challenges faced by pollinators: “The biggest challenges affecting honey bees — as well as native bees and other pollinators — are climate change, habitat loss, pesticide use, pests, and pathogens,” she said. “These factors contributed to U.S. commercial beekeepers losing a devastating average of 62% of their colonies last year.”
Honey bees are important pollinators for food crops; threats to their survival drive DeWitt’s advocacy efforts at multiple levels.
“Honey bee colonies are superorganisms — tens of thousands of individuals working together for the good of the hive,” she added. “Bees are intelligent, endlessly fascinating creatures, and I never stop learning from them. Beekeeping has made me a better gardener, horticulturist, ecologist, conservationist, carpenter, biologist scientist student teacher problem solver… you name it.”
In recognition of her work during eight years in beekeeping education and outreach—including time spent at Georgia Tech—DeWitt received Georgia Beekeepers Association’s Beekeeper of the Year Award in 2025.
“I am profoundly grateful to the state’s beekeeping community for recognizing my efforts over the past eight years,” says DeWitt. “This award reflects the mentorship I’ve received from some truly exceptional beekeepers.”
Georgia Institute of Technology operates its main campus on more than 400 acres in Midtown Atlanta (https://gatech.edu/) where it serves over 55 000 students annually while managing more than $1.4 billion dollars in sponsored research (https://gatech.edu/). It offers programs across engineering computing sciences business design liberal arts (https://gatech.edu/), aiming to develop leaders who advance technology (https://gatech.edu/). Ángel Cabrera serves as president (https://gatech.edu/).
