October 14, 2016 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 7A
Inn debuts ‘budget boutique’ style
Beekeeper speaks
Beekeeper from Page 1A
keeping bees. At irst, she was
hesitant to go to his house, but
she eventually started to per-
ceive bees as interesting.
“My curiosity started to
overcome my fear,” she said.
In 2005, she realized she
was allergic to sugar, and
her father became her honey
supplier. When she and her
husband got their own house
in 2008, her father gave her a
box of bees to start her own
colony.
Eight years later, she said,
“I’m totally in love with
bees.”
A year-round
commitment
To ind success as a bee-
keeper, a person must be will-
ing to work hard and be con-
sistent with perfunctory tasks.
Above all, though, “Bee-
keepers pay attention,” Ten-
nis said, adding, “The most
important aspect of being a
beekeeper is being able to ob-
serve and retain what you’re
observing, or to analyze and
understand it.”
Bees are unlike the mam-
mals most people are used
to dealing with, such as cats,
dogs, horses and rabbits. If a
person has not regularly in-
teracted with bees, they likely
will struggle to understand
bees’ behavior, moods and
vocabulary. Beekeepers have
to observe and learn quickly
to avoid being stung and to
keep their colonies healthy
and thriving, Tennis said. For
instance, bees communicate
through pheromones, and the
aroma they emanate when up-
set smells like banana candy.
“You’re always going to
be learning something,” Ten-
nis said.
The work of a beekeeper
is spread throughout the year.
In the wintertime, bees are
in a quiet state because the
weather is usually too cold
and wet for them to ly and
there is little food to forage.
That’s when beekeepers can
work on equipment, assem-
bling new parts or changing
out old frames with wax that
has built up an unhealthy
amount of toxins or residue.
During her presentation,
Tennis described the system
she uses, called a Langstroth
hive, and explained the signif-
icance of each component.
In March or April each
year, Tennis usually prepares
her honey-gathering equip-
ment, which includes hon-
ey supers — smaller boxes
where bees will make hon-
ey that get placed on top of
brood boxes and can later
be removed to retrieve the
honey — and queen exclud-
ers — a lat rack with holes
large enough to allow smaller
worker bees to enter but not
large enough for the queen
bee to get through, which pre-
vents her from laying in that
section.
In the spring, once she
knows baby bees are being
laid and male bees are around,
Tennis inspects her hives to
see if each one has a queen
and if she’s laying well. If a
hive is strong, she then splits
the colony, putting all the
frames with baby bees in one
box and the others back into
the original box. The proce-
dure has three beneits: break-
ing the reproductive cycles of
varroa mites without using
pesticides; helping to build
apiaries; and controlling or
preventing swarming.
During the summer, the
bees forage and make hon-
ey. That is when Tennis also
works as a bee-wrangler of
sorts, responding to people’s
calls and catching rampag-
ing swarms of bees. While
some people are nervous
around swarming bees, catch-
ing them is Tennis’ favorite
task. She has found swarms in
some strange places, includ-
ing chimneys, utility boxes,
the walls of sheds and inside
a gas tank.
The next phase of bee-
keeping is harvesting honey
during the fall. Plant nectar
originally is about 80 percent
moisture; after the bees pro-
cess it, the moisture is reduced
to 18 percent or less, making
it a highly saturated and hy-
groscopic luid. Tennis uses
a centrifuge to get the honey
from the wax combs on her
frames. Depending on where
and what plants the nectar
originated, honey can have a
variety of colors and lavors.
Tennis also shared with the
audience how queen bees are
made, how gender is deter-
mined, the life cycle of bees
and other tips for people who
are interested in beekeeping.
Those who don’t desire to
keep bees but want to contrib-
ute to the health of pollinators
and that of the environment
can take other steps, such as
letting their lawn grow, plant-
ing lowers that bloom in late
fall or early spring and limit-
ing their use of pesticides and
other toxic chemicals, Tennis
said. They also can support
their community beekeepers.
Tennis runs a website, bee-
mentor.com, to help educate
people about beekeeping and
bees.
Remodeled hotel seeks
to fill a niche
By Katherine Lacaze
For the Seaside Signal
Here’s one boutique hotel
geared to be affordable.
Hotelier Masudur Khan,
managing director of Seaside
Lodging, purchased the Coast
River Inn and adjacent River
View Inn, on Holladay Drive
and Avenue G, as a package
deal in August 2015. The two
properties and their accompa-
nying buildings were combined
to create the 42-bedroom “bud-
get boutique” hotel, designed to
attract guests in the mid-scale
level, Khan said.
Khan was irst offered the
properties about three years
ago. He declined but changed
his mind after recognizing po-
tential in the lodging facilities,
which were not receiving ade-
quate use or attention.
“One day I thought, ‘May-
be I’ll take this and see what
happens,’” he said, adding he
hoped to improve the buildings’
aesthetics to appeal to travelers
along Holladay, a main thor-
oughfare in Seaside. “This is
a property you can see right
away.”
The Coast River Inn recent-
ly underwent an approximately
$400,000 exterior and interior
face-lift after being acquired
by Seaside Lodging. The ren-
ovation began last fall, as the
tourist season began to wane.
Khan did not want the project
to interrupt summer business,
he said. Even then, the reno-
vation focused on one building
irst, followed by the other, so
the hotel could continue func-
tioning throughout the remodel.
“We didn’t actually shut
down the whole hotel,” Khan
said.
About 80 percent of the
renovation was completed by
By Erick Bengel
EO Media Group
ASTORIA —After a ive-
month search, the Liberty
Theater has hired Jennifer
Crockett, a professional mu-
sician, as the venue’s new di-
rector.
The board of directors
hired Crockett, 39, for the
full-time position at an Au-
gust meeting. She began work
in mid-September.
The interim director, Carol
Shepherd, plans to move back
to Eugene.
As director, Crockett will
TWO LOCATIONS
SEASIDE & HILLSBORO
740 Ave H • Ste 2 • Seaside
232 NE Lincoln • Ste B • Hillsboro
March, with just a few cus-
tom-made orders outstanding.
While most of the renova-
tion took place on the exterior
of the buildings, some interior
updates included new furniture,
appliances and bedding, along
with the installation of compli-
mentary high-speed wireless
Internet.
On the outside, the build-
ings received new cedar stain-
ing, lighting and signage. A
sidewalk was installed to con-
nect the former River View Inn
to the original Coast River Inn
building. The hotel was given
a new logo and orange color
scheme, which was incorporat-
ed into the landscaping.
Guests wanting to tour Sea-
side can use the hotel’s new
handle book-
ings for the
theater
and
its McTavish
Room
and
Paulson Pa-
Jennifer
vilion. She
Crockett
will
also
oversee the
building’s retail properties.
Crockett replaces Rose-
mary Baker-Monaghan, the
Liberty’s longtime execu-
tive director who resigned in
April.
“We are very fortunate to
have Jennifer Crockett as our
new director,” Christine Lol-
complimentary bike rental
service. Management initially
purchased two bikes, unsure
how the service would be re-
ceived. Before long, they were
compelled to increase the stock
from two to seven to meet de-
mand.
“Guests like to explore Sea-
side” on the bicycles, said Kaa-
rina Vera, the sales, marketing
and revenue manager.
With the addition of the
Coast River Inn, Seaside Lodg-
ing’s portfolio of independent
hotels grew to four, including
the Inn at Seaside, the River Inn
at Seaside and the City Center
Motel. Each lodging facility is
targeted toward a different mar-
ket segment, from economy to
upper midscale.
ich, president of the Liberty
board, said in a release. “She
brings new energy, creative
ideas and a rebirth of the Lib-
erty Theater.”
Crockett was chosen be-
cause of her background in
arts and management. She
graduated from the DePaul
University School of Music in
Chicago with a performance
degree in clarinet and bass
clarinet.
“She also came very pre-
pared with what she wanted
to do, so that was very attrac-
tive,” Lolich said.
Crockett, who has per-
formed in the Astoria Music
Festival, plays with a variety
of organizations, including
symphony orchestras, cham-
ber groups and pit orches-
tras.
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On Stage at the Elks’s Lodge in downtown Seaside as part of
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New help for
Medicare costs!
Prescription
cost assistance
(Part D)
To qualify, monthly gross income less than:
Single
$1,485
(no resource limits)
(savings and other resources
are less than $13,640)
Couple
$1,803
Couple
$2,003
(no resource limits)
This image from Seaside Lodging compares the Coast River
Inn before its renovation, started last fall, and after. 
With a fairly central loca-
tion but few amenities, such as
a swimming pool or compli-
mentary breakfast, Khan said
the Coast River Inn appeals to
a mid-scale younger, modern
crowd looking for something
new in Seaside that is reason-
ably priced for the market.
“They’re getting good
rooms,” Khan added. “It’s not
too crowded and it’s quiet.”
Under new management
and with the renovation, the
Coast River Inn’s rating among
Seaside hotels has steadily
increased during the past six
months. While it formerly sat
near the bottom, it was ranked
No. 10 on TripAdvisor last
week, although the ratings can
frequently luctuate.
Under Seaside Lodging’s
ownership, the property has
increased employment with
the addition of eight to 10 full-
time employees. While pre-
viously the properties housed
longer-term tenants for weeks
or months at a time, the Coast
River Inn now focuses on the
more traditional hotel model of
guests staying only a few days,
which contributes a signiicant
lodging tax increase to the city
of Seaside. Now that the reno-
vation is inished, Khan said,
“we are expecting higher occu-
pancy next year.”
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45 Years of Experience
To qualify, monthly gross income less than:
The Inn ofers a bike service,
which gives guests use of the
bikes for an hour for free.
Liberty Theater hires Jennifer Crockett as new director
ROBERT CAIN LD,
Premium
assistance
(Part B)
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(savings and other resources
are less than $27,250)
Call Oregon Medicare Savings Connect:
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This publication was produced by the State of Oregon with i nancial assistance through a
grant from the Administration for Community Living. These comments do not
necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and
the grantee should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.