Melissa Bees – Pollinating the Earth with Gardens and Hives
Joy Margraf demonstrating skep weaving
White Salmon turned out en masse to show it’s support for bees and pollinators last weekend,with 80 plus attendees at the ‘We Need Bees’ seminar at the White Salmon Library. Jennifer Hull, gracious Community Librarian and our host commented, “Wow, there are more people here tonight than come out for music events!” Attendees spilled out of the conference room into the lobby, where Joy Markgraf’s stunning grass and cloamed skeps were on display in the library’s well-appointed cases and bookshelves (and continue to be, through the month of April) and Joy herself sat in a comfortable chair demonstrating her weaving to onlookers. Pamphlets and resource sheets about pollinators and plants from the Xerces Society and local extension offices were displayed on the tables for people to peruse.
As I alluded to in my introduction and invocation that night, the seminar was truly a weaving together of hearts and talent from our area and White Salmon has a lot to be proud of!
Todd Murray from the WSU Extension in Skamania Co., gave a fascinating presentation in his affable and conversational style and drew the crowd into the world of pollinators, some of them surprising sources like flies and lizards! He gave a very clear overview for the layperson how flowers and pollinators are interrelated and why they are so important to our native plants and agriculture.
John Kraus, local commercial beekeeper, talked about honeybees and the lesser known mason bees, and their importance as early season sources of pollination. He shared his veritable menagerie of mason bee and bumble bee houses and answered lots of technical bee keeping questions from the eager crowd.
Joy Margraf's woven grass top bar skep, displayed at the White Salmon Library through the end of April.
Jeannette Burkhardt, local gardening enthusiast, gave a thorough presentation on planting for pollinators. Through her field work experiences doing plant surveys, working on her own garden as well as on the Witson Elementary School’s Pollinator Garden, she has developed site evaluation techniques that inform her about pollinator needs in an area. She advocated low-water needs plantings, provided an excellent native planting resource list as well as suggestions for supplanting local lawns with bunch grass prairie. She had a few surprises up her sleeve, too. Not many people may know that mud puddles, bare dirt and rock piles are important habitat for pollinators!
This event showed us how blessed we are to live in such an abundant native landscape; the rich feeling of heart and craft in this community, and how committed the people are to making a better home for the honey bees, native pollinators and themselves.
Clay bee house with thatched roof
Display case with Joy's skep weaving tools and a photo of her internet mentor Martin Newton, a skeppist from England
John Kraus talks beekeeping to the overflowing crowd
Melissa with Riley-bee the event photographer in front of Joy's astounding grass skep top bar hive