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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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stanley said. The ordinance went
into effect in 1984 and has had sig-
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In 1984, Winstanley said, “We
could say, ‘No, you don’t get to do
certain activities,’” but today, it is
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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.