I was about to chlorinate my pool today when I saw a few bees taking water to spray on their hive nearby to cool it off. It was then I realized that chlorinated pools could be a possible cause of colony collapse disorder. I put the chlorine back in the storage room instead of pouring some into the pool, and decided that I'm only going to chlorinate my pool very lightly, and only at night so the chlorine has a lot of time to dissipate before it gets hot out and the bees show up to get water. A little chlorinated pool water might not do much harm to a hive, but if the bees repeatedly spray the hive with varying concentrations of chlorinated water, over time the hive will likely collapse and nobody would know what happened. Somebody ought to look into this - are hives collapsing in warmer zones faster than cooler zones? Perhaps the effects of chlorine happen gradually over time, and weaken the colonies a little bit more each generation as the effects of chlorine accumulate. Cooler zones would not provide immunity to CCD because of the migratory (swarming) behavior of bees. Eventually colonies in the cooler zones would collapse, but it would start several generations later than in the warmer zones. If chlorinated pool water is indeed the root cause of CCD, it would stand to reason that bees in the hottest parts of the country - where more people have pools - would be hit the hardest and fastest with CCD. My family had a few hundred hives in Chino Hills, CA while I was growing up, I was raised with bees, and I love them. I hope we can stop CCD in time. It sure would be nice if it was something as simple as pool chlorine.

It's a good sale! Jean, who formerly gardened in Long Beach for 30-some years.

Yes, I seem to remember you had family last year. It went very well and of course the weather was great for it. Lots of people came for the event and plenty of people came upon it just by being in Piedmont Park. I understand ABG was having an herb sale and some people might have done both. Don't be put off by the line. The sale occupies two sides of a very broad path so the crowd quickly gets distributed as people stop to look at trees/shrubs (the first area) or head straight for the trilliums. There are plenty of people with dogs, many of them because they just happened to be in the park and wandered through. Lots of park visitors bike, walk or skate their way through the sale. We only have a sale of this magnitude once a year. We do sell a few plants at meetings (every other month at ABG) and also at the symposium. You are welcome to attend a meeting as a guest and buy some plants while you are there. The meeting topics are posted on the web as the date gets closer. The next meeting will be May 9th (a Wednesday) at 7 pm in Day Hall at ABG. The topic is not yet posted. As for the sale, some stuff ran out early - jack in the pulpits and foamflower were gone by 10:30, but some trilliums and heuchera were there until the end. The two sabal minor palms (seedlings) did not sell. I think people who don't know are still unsure about having palms in Atlanta. We had tons of Virginia sweetspire (our Plant of the Year) and it all sold, but maple leaf viburnums were still available to the end. All but two of the native azaleas sold and we had a lot of those. So, I think it was a success. We (the volunteers) had lots of fun, met a lot of new people and got to talk plants all day. Can't ask for much more than that! :) Hope to see you there next year.

Barb, Christina, Pam and Julie, I wish you could've come. Mark, it was nice meeting you. I love the pink plumeria you brought. Thanks. It was our biggest best plant swap ever and the weather was perfect. We had a hard time counting because everyone was walking around and there were too many to get in one picture. Someone said they thought we had around 70 people. I know it was more than 50 but it's like counting fish in a pond. We had lots of Garden Gate Club members and several GWers. Our club now has 45 members and some of the nicest people you've ever met. Marti, we will post picures. I'm still recovering and exhausted but it was SO worth it.