Astoria wallops Warrenton Leinassar takes home 12th trophy SPORTS • 7A SPORTS • 7A WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015 143rd YEAR, No. 6 ONE DOLLAR A license to beg? Seaside revisits panhandler rules By KATHERINE LACAZE EO Media Group NATALIE ST. JOHN — EO Media Group Members of the Willapa River Beekeepers Club examine combs during a honey-bee hive inspection at a farm north of Tokeland June 6. The members of the club are more interested in pollination and building back a thriving bee population than they are in harvesting the honey. Squeeze the honey, but don’t squeeze the bee Willapa River Beekeeping Club focuses on building healthy hives By KATIE WILSON EO Media Group TOKELAND, Wash. — Paul Young has just committed a very great sin — and the bees know it. Their gentle “hummmm” sudden- ly changes pitch. The sound of their buzzing wings had faded into back- ground noise, but now it can’t be ig- nored. They’re angry, roaring, rising in a dizzy black and yellow cloud — for Paul Young has indeed sinned. Paul Young has accidentally squeezed a bee. It’s a phrase all Young’s own and he repeats it now as he continues to calmly search the hive for a queen bee. “I squeezed a bee so they react, of course, as you would, so now I smell like a squeezed bee,” he says. “Don’t VTXHH]HWKHEHHV7KDW¶VGH¿QLWHO\DQ issue.” “You need a new pair of gloves?” asks his wife, Gail Friedlander, her face covered with a veil, her socks pulled up over the hem of her pants and her long shirt sleeves stretch over the openings of her own clear, plastic gloves to make sure that none of the bees hovering near her or landing on KHU¿QGDZD\XQGHUKHUFORWKHV NATALIE ST. JOHN — EO Media Group Bees crawl across a comb removed from a bee hive at Nancy Fischer and Steve Young’s farm north of Tokeland. Some of the bees have begun to build small yellow, conical structures called “queen cups” to pave the way for a new queen bee. More photos at www.dailyastorian.com “No, I’m good.” Young, Friedlander and other members of the Willapa River Bee- keeping Club are at Nancy Fischer and Steve Young’s small farm north of Tokeland. The couple is one year into beekeeping and wanted Paul Young to inspect several of their six hives, including two newer ones they started from swarms — populations of bees that have left their parent hives and set out on their own. The beekeeping club has approx- imately 20 active members and pro- vides these members with everything from practical information to a com- munity of like-minded people. It also offers regular hive inspections where more experienced members can walk newer beekeepers through the ins and outs of hive maintenance, as well as help them determine if a hive is suc- ceeding or struggling. Bee inspection Paul Young stands behind hive No. 3 at Fischer and Steve Young’s farm. These are Langstroth hives, a particu- lar style of man-made hive that looks like compact dresser drawers stacked on top of each other. Filed vertical- ly in each drawer are the combs, frames containing plastic lattice- work that the bees use to spread out honey and rear larvae, baby bees. Young removes the hive’s lid ¿UVW DQG QRZ LW¶V SRVVLEOH WR SHHU down into the “honey super,” the top drawer. Below that comes the brood drawer. Several other club members hover nearby, helping him move the pieces and operate the smok- er, which spews a regular cloud of smoke in and around the hive. Young wants minimal smoke since smoke makes the bees believe their hive is threatened. He doesn’t want to distress them too much, but he DOVR GRHVQ¶W ZDQW WKHP À\LQJ E\ the dozens around his head. When they sense the smoke, the bees rush inside, and some start gorging on stored honey in case they need to make a quick escape. Bee logic says take what you can carry. The majority of club members keep bees, while the others are a mix: some plan on having bees down the road, others are merely curious and want to tag along. The members represent only about 10 to 15 percent of the total number of beekeepers in the area, Young says, and most of them are not in it for WKHKRQH\²WKRXJKLWLVGH¿QLWHO\ a perk if the hives are extra produc- tive. Fischer and Steve Young, as well as club member Brent Nay- lor, echo this, saying their primary concerns are plant pollination and helping honey bees thrive. See BEES, Page 10A SEASIDE — The city of Sea- side is exploring a new method for making Seaside less appealing to panhandlers: requiring them to apply for a $50-per-day itinerant merchant permit in order to solicit in public. More than 30 years since the adop- tion of an ordinance regarding itin- erant merchants, the city is en route to updating the ordinance to make it more “permissive,” which means the city would allow certain activities as long they conform to regulations, City Manager Mark Winstanley said. At a meeting June 22, the Seaside City Council discussed an ordinance that regulates the buying and selling of merchandise “by individuals that GRQRWKDYHD¿[HGORFDWLRQ´:LQ- stanley said. The ordinance went into effect in 1984 and has had sig- QL¿FDQWFKDQJHVVLQFHWKHQ In 1984, Winstanley said, “We could say, ‘No, you don’t get to do certain activities,’” but today, it is PRUH GLI¿FXOW IRU PXQLFLSDOLWLHV WR ban people from doing things that are not illegal or unconstitutional. The itinerant merchants license ordi- nance “was a concern for us, because it was a restrictive ordinance, so we rewrote it to be permissive,” he said. See PANHANDLERS, Page 10A Riverwalk Inn lease spoken for Portland hotelier has signed contract By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Brad Smithart’s run operating the Astoria Riverwalk Inn might be coming to an end, one way or anoth- er. Shortly after a Tuesday Port of Astoria Commission meeting, Ex- ecutive Director Jim Knight said he received a call earlier that day from Ganesh Sonpatki, a Portland hotelier representing the Param Hotel Group. Sonpatki, Knight said, told him Smi- thart was headed to Portland to talk. At a June meeting, the Port Com- mission unanimously authorized Knight to transfer the remainder of the lease from Smithart’s company Hospitality Masters to the Param Hotel Group, in exchange for Param paying off Smithart’s numerous debts. Knight estimated Smithart’s debts at more than $250,000 to the Port for past-due rent and revenue sharing. See RIVERWALK, Page 10A Conservancy brings violets closer to home Flowers to be used to lure EXWWHUÀLHVEDFN to the coast By KATHERINE LACAZE EO Media Group SEASIDE — The North Coast Land Conservancy re- cently received a large deliv- ery at its Circle Creek Hab- itat Reserve: About 19,000 early blue violet plants, tucked safely in beds until the flowers are ready to be planted in the fall to help bring back the Oregon sil- verspot butterfly. On June 30, Stewardship Director Melissa Reich and the conservancy’s summer stewardship crew guided the violets’ journey from a nursery in Tillamook to the Circle Creek property, where they will stay for the time being. Come fall, the violets, which were grown using seeds propagated from the seeds of native Clatsop County plants, will be taken to their permanent homes on the Clatsop Plains and Long Beach (Wash.) Peninsula. “The plants have had a long journey, and they have a long journey ahead of them,” Reich said. Back to the coast The journey started when the conservancy gathered seeds from flowers growing on its salt spray meadow properties on the Clatsop Plains. Those seeds were sent Corvallis, where they were planted to make a full bed of flowers. Once the flowers had matured, the center gathered a bag of their seeds and sent them to the conservancy as part of a process known as seed banking, land conservancy Executive Director Katie Voelke said. In January 2014, staff and volunteers planted nearly 20,000 seeds into individu- al containers in Tillamook. Since the coast seeds were grown in the valley, the group wanted to re-adapt them to the coastal climate. See FLOWERS, Page 10A KATHERINE LACAZE — EO Media Group The North Coast Land Conservancy brought numerous beds of early blue violets to the organization’s Circle Creek property, just south of Seaside June 30. The flowers will stay there un- til this fall, when the conservancy intends to sow the approx- imately 19,000 violet plants on its Clatsop Plains and Long Beach (Wash.) Peninsula properties as part of a long-term re- search project. One of the goals of planting the violets is to cre- ate a habitat to foster Oregon silverspot butterfly repopulation.