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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 8, 2015)
10A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015 %eeV Unpredictability, ¿nicky nature draw beekeepers in &onWLnXeG IroP 3aJe 1A Right now, they say, the tiny black and yellow insects are struggling. Colony collapse disorder, a mysterious phenom- enon where worker bees aban- don their hive and their queen, has decimated bee populations across the country in recent years. According to some esti- mates, the total U.S. honey bee population is less than half of what it was at the beginning of the 1950s. In the early 2000s, commercial beekeepers found more and more of their hives completely abandoned. &ollecWLnJ VZarPV But, in Paci¿c County, the outlook for bees this year is bright. Another service the club provides, both to club members and the general public, is swarm removal. When a honey bee hive¶s population swells and it becomes too crowded inside, the colony will split and a number of bees, along with a queen, will search for a home elsewhere. This is called swarming and it can look a little horrifying: The bees mass together, forming of- ten huge, swaying clumps that hang from tree branches. Then club member Dutch Holland might get a call and out he comes with a box and un- ceremoniously dumps the bees inside. If the queen goes in ¿rst, sometimes the workers will fall in line and follow her scent into their new home. This year alone, Holland has collected 18 swarms. Another member collected 23, most orig- inating from his own assortment of hives. All together so far, the club has gathered approximate- ly 70 swarms and will likely end the year with close to 100, Holland predicts. Of these, he says, about 80 percent will be- come successful hives with larvae-bearing queens and a healthy worker bee population. “That¶s impressive for one little club,” he said in a phone in- NATALIE ST. JOHN — EO Media Group Beekeepers have many tools of the trade, one of the more important is the smoker, which helps keep bees relatively calm while beekeepers work on a hive — though some beekeepers don’t use them at all. terview June 25. “This is going to be a good year. We had an early spring and it¶s probably going to be a late summer so bees are going to be active all the way through.” He says it feels like the bees are coming back. 8npreGLcWaEle ¿nLcNy Meanwhile, back at the farm, the inspection of hive No. 3 has become a more complicated operation. Paul Young lifts one box. Instead of a neat patchwork of honey and pollen in the cells there is a drooping mass of comb built by the bees them- selves along the bottom of the frame. Bees are everywhere, the “bzzzzzzz” rising loud and mad once again. Young calls for another box and a bucket. He and other club members carefully scrape away the excess. The excitement dies down. Young moves through the boxes. He has not found a queen, though there are several “queen cups,” indicating that the bees are trying to pave the way for a new queen. A hive without a queen is a hive that won¶t last long. The queen is the only bee that lays eggs; she is the engine at the heart of any hive. Looking at the hive from the outside, it would be impossible to tell that its inhabitants are facing such a perilous future. From the outside, it looks busy ² literally buzzing with bees, collecting and storing honey. Steve Young and Fischer have options, though. The most ob- vious option is to bring in a new queen themselves, a purchase they could make online or through some local beekeepers and bee breeders. The important thing is they found out before the hive re- ally started to suffer, they say. This unpredictability and the bees¶ own sometimes ¿nicky na- ture are what attract people to bee- keeping. Inside any hive, there¶s a whole other world unfolding. Old queens die and newly hatched queens stalk the combs, killing rivals. Drones ² the male bees that mate with the queen ² hang around for as long as they¶re use- ful, then they¶re shown the door. Workers and nurse bees at- tend to honey collection and the rearing of young. Together, the bees rise to face attack and Àee together when the hive is lost. And beekeepers are the delighted spectators and concerned stewards of all of this. Or, as Friedlander says, “Managing bees is like herding cats. They¶re going to do what they¶re going to do, but you can kind of guide them in the right direction.” For swarm rescue, call Dutch Holland at 360-942-7830. For more information about the bee- keeping club, visit its Facebook page: Willapa River Beekeeping Club. RLverZalN Thousands owed )loZerV Second year of project &onWLnXeG IroP 3aJe 1A The city of Astoria¶s Fi- nance Director Susan Brooks said as of early June, Smi- thart owed the city $92,000 in lodging taxes and past-due water bills. And Knight said Smithart owed $16,000 to the county, as of the beginning of June. Smithart¶s lease on the Riverwalk Inn runs through September 2017, with an op- tion to extend another ¿ve years. As part of the lease assignment, the Port would enter negotiations on a new lease with Sonpatki, who said he wants at least 17 years. Knight said he has reached the end of his patience with Smithart, who he said has been dif¿cult to get in touch with. Smithart has also not responded to several requests for an interview over the past week. Knight has said his best guess was that Smithart might be negotiating for a better deal, adding that he could add an investor with up to 49 per- cent ownership without Port Commission approval. 3layLnJ WKe ¿elG Former Astoria commer- cial developer Chester Tra- bucco, who invested millions into the Hotel Elliott before selling the property in 2010, came forward as an interest- ed party in the Riverwalk Inn. Trabucco said he represented a partnership interested in the hotel, although he never re- vealed any partners. Perplexed by a Friday story in The Daily Astorian reporting the lease on the Riv- erwalk Inn still might still be available, Sonpatki called the newspaper Monday. He said Smithart had signed a con- tract long ago stipulating he turn the hotel¶s operation over to Param by September, with bonuses for leaving early. Before Sonpatki¶s call Tuesday, Knight said Trabucco had called to say his partner- ship was no longer interested. “It appears it has already been sold,” Trabucco told the newspaper Tuesday. « anG vLGeo JaPeV Smithart and partner Seth Davis¶ Hospitality Masters, which had not operated any ho- tels before, won the blessing of the Port Commission in March 2012 to reopen the shuttered Red Lion Inn overlooking the West End Mooring Basin. They beat out Portland real estate and development com- pany Williams/Dame & As- sociates, which has designed hotels, apartments, subdi- visions and of¿ce buildings around Portland, Bend and Los Angeles. The company wanted to tear the former Red Lion down and build a new 84-room hotel surrounded by a boardwalk. The Port¶s original lease with Hospitality Masters was for $10,000 a month, plus 10 percent of the hotel¶s gross revenue. By August 2013 the Port had already given Smi- thart his ¿rst eviction notice, after he fell behind as much as $40,000 in rent and reve- nue-sharing with the Port and $48,000 in the city¶s lodging taxes. Smithart ¿gured out a payment plan and survived. The Port Commission vot- ed 3-2 in November 2013 to give Smithart a $5,000 month- ly reduction in rent November through April, provided he re- invested it in the hotel. Knight said it feels as if Smi- thart is using the Port¶s ² and by extension the public¶s ² asset in the hotel to build an arcade. While falling behind on bills at the hotel, Smithart opened the Arc Arcade a year ago at the corner of 11th and Commercial streets. He started with mostly retro arcade consoles he said came from his own collec- tion and friends, along with a cafe and video game rentals. He has since added computer rentals, Àat-screen monitors, a gigantic Àat-screen television with gaming console rentals and a large selection of comic books. Last month, Smithart opened an expansion of the Arc Arcade, with an entire ad- ditional room of retro arcade games, billiards and Skee- Ball. He has also talked about starting laser tag, game design classes and a public-access television station. &onWLnXeG IroP 3aJe 1A More than a year later, the conservancy went back to collect thousands of bur- geoning shoots. “There are a few genera- tions involved in these vio- lets,” Voelke said of the tiny plants now soaking up sun- shine and rain at Circle Creek. It was important, she said, to maintain the Àowers¶ coast genetics for the sake of the project. In the fall, the conservancy will reach out to volunteers to plant the Àowers at its property on the Long Beach Peninsula and the Clatsop Plains. Fall and early winter are the best times for planting because the Àowers are getting dormant, “and they stay nice and wet, so they¶re well-established by spring,” Voelke said. Increasing the presence of early blue violets will cause a re-emergence of the Oregon silverspot butterÀy at suitable habitats. The Oregon silver- spot butterÀy, which is federal- ly listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened, relies entirely on the Àower because it where the adult but- terÀies will lay eggs and where the larva can successfully feed and develop. The Clatsop Plains and Long Beach Peninsula used to teem with butterÀies but they haven¶t been seen much since the 1990s, NCLC Communi- cations Coordinator Bonnie Henderson. Some violets re- main, but not enough to sup- port a robust butterÀy popula- tion, Reich said. Recovery plan The conservancy¶s ap- proach to restoring the butter- Àies is really habitat-focused, Henderson said. Reich agreed, adding, “Part of the recovery plan for the species is to bring back the population, and before we can do that, we need to have a habitat.” Rather than releasing a batch of non-native butterÀies onto the plains and peninsula and hoping they will remain, the conservancy is trying to build a suitable habitat that will support native butterÀies repopulating themselves. The conservancy is man- aging the coastal prairie hab- itat, on which the Oregon silverspot butterÀy is depen- dent, using strategies such as mowing, burning, removing invasive species and planting native plants, like the early blue violets. The presumption, Henderson said, is that butter- Àies will ¿nd the Àowers and introduce a new generation of the species. She described the management strategy as “a to- tally natural process, aided by a lot of human activity.” The early blue violets are just a small part of a larger story, Reich said. The con- servancy is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and Willapa National Wildlife Ref- uge on a ¿ve-year North Coast prairie restoration project. The group is in the second year of the project, having spent the ¿rst portion preparing plots at research areas for testing site-management strategies. 3anKanGlerV Must have permit &onWLnXeG IroP 3aJe 1A The definition of an itin- erant merchant in the code applies to “a person occupy- ing a temporary fixed loca- tion, who promotes, solicits or sells from stock or in- ventory on hand or displays samples and solicits orders for merchandise in stock.” The amendment seeks to expand the definition to in- clude any person offering a service, entertainment or nothing, in return for com- pensation. Currently the ordinance entirely bans begging or so- liciting on the streets or in any public place, the amend- ment to the itinerant merchant regulation would allow that activity ² as long as the indi- vidual has obtained a permit. The fees remain unchanged: $50 per day or a maximum of $1,000 in a calendar year. Many municipalities¶ laws restricting or disallowing panhandling or begging have come under scrutiny as being unconstitutional in the past few years. “It¶s one of the things that has changed,” Winstanley said, adding it has put police of¿cers in a dif¿cult position when it comes to enforce- ment. With the amendment, he said, “We¶re telling them that that would be OK, but you just have to follow the rules.” The amendment also would change the de¿nition of temporary ¿xed location to “any business location, public or private.” The amendment also pro- hibits services from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., when all merchandise and ancillary equipment must be enclosed within a perma- nent commercial structure or removed from the temporary ¿xed location. “We also wanted to make sure there was an understand- ing that itinerant merchants could only work during what¶s basically the daytime hours,” Winstanley said. Councilor Tita Montero said she liked the change be- cause sometimes entertain- ment can cause a disturbance during nighttime hours. The penalty for violating the ordinance is $500, but the amendment seeks to increase the penalty to $700. Finally, the amendment adds a new exception: “The city reserves the right to limit licensing in heavily congest- ed areas during periods of extreme crowding to protect the safety and security of both merchants and customers.” There are certain times during the year ² such as Fourth of July or during the Hood to Coast Relays ² that are not appropriate for people to be selling or soliciting as itinerant merchants because of congestion and other safety concerns, Winstanley said. “There¶s just too much ac- tivity in the downtown core area, which is where we see the majority of itinerant mer- chants,” he added. The ordinance does not apply to garage sales or farmers markets, which are licensed under a different or- dinance. The ordinance is slated for possible adoption at the coun- cil¶s meeting Monday. 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