6 AUGUST 1,2008
Smoke Signals
(Bee mrainramrti
Tribal employee helping to save threatened hives
By Ron Karten
Smoke Signals staff writer
Honeybees are dying, and nobody
is sure why.
With the honeybee crisis looming
as the agricultural buzz of the day,
Tribal employee Joanne Carr has
become our resident beekeeper.
She is the example of a personal
contribution to the effort that also
includes work being done at Oregon
State and other universities to
bring back bees.
Carr is Adult Education Program
coordinator for the Tribe, but as of
earlier this year, she also wears
another hat "a bee veil."
"I'm so involved in the environ
ment and the mess that we've
made," Carr said.
Coincidentally working in co
operation with Carr are Oregon's
regional libraries, where the sum
mer theme is "Catch the Reading
Bug."
Each week at the Tribe, the li
brary offers books, readings and
displays "related to bugs and things
having to do with bugs," said Tribal
member and Tribal Librarian
Marion Mercier.
During the week of June 20, bees
and honeybees hit the top of the
agenda. Come July, Mercier and
Carr found an audience among pre
schoolers for the beleaguered bees,
and Carr dressed for the occasion.
The bee veil is an apparatus with
netting and a stiff plastic top with
elastic at the bottom of the mesh
to keep the bees out. It is a daunt
ing enough piece of apparatus
that not just anybody in the Early
Childhood classes was willing to
try it on.
Tribal member Nakai Rock, 5,
however, was willing, and the lea
son of the bees got under way on
the morning of July 7 at the Tribal
Library.
Carr's involvement has long gone
beyond bees, however.
"I believe in sustainability," she
said. "I have a huge garden to grow
my own food and plant as many
native plants in my pastures as I
can because they don't need much
water and attract birds and wildlife
important to our habitat."
Through burning, replanting and
using Corsican hair sheep to keep
the weeds grazed, she cleared more
than three acres of invasive plants
on her 15-acre farm in Silverton.
She also has about 35 free range
chickens and sells eggs locally.
Carr also has been director of
Zone 5 of the Marion Soil and Water
Conservation District since spring
2006. The group orchestrates nu
merous programs, including the
doling out of $1,000 a month to
groups sending children on out
doors adventures.
Also, the districts sponsor a
statewide competition based on
environmental knowledge. Called
Envirothon, the winners among
high school students receive college
scholarships. Most counties have
Soil and Water Conservation dis
tricts, Carr said, including Yamhill,
which holds an annual native plant
sale every February.
The mysterious collapse of bee
colonies all over the country con
vinced Carr that it was time to help.
She enrolled in a Chemeketa Com
munity College course "where about
50 of us showed up to learn about
having a hive," she said. She then
purchased an Italian hive of some
2,000 worker bees and a queen.
"Italian bees make better honey,"
Carr said.
Here in America, it has been two
years since uncountable numbers of
bees vanished from their hives.
"It's been getting worse and
worse," Carr said.
Experts studying the problem
"feel that the bees are very stressed.
It may be pesticides. It may be
mites that have come into the coun
try, possibly from Asia. It might
even be the result of beekeepers
x
Photo by Michelle Alaimo
Joanne Carr, left. Adult Education Program coordinator for the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde, shows Tribal member Nakai Rock, 5, a hat and veil
that beekeepers wear when working with bees before Rock gets to try it on
during a talk that Carr gave to students at the Tribal Library on Monday, July
7. Carr is a beekeeper and has a hive at her home.
taking tens of thousands of bees for
hundreds of miles on flatbed trucks
to serve monoculture farmers. It's
certainly stressful traveling back
and forth," Carr said.
"We wanted her to bring her bee
stuff in and talk about bees," Mer
cier said. "There's a lot of real posi
tive information for people to know
about bees, and our display allows
that information to be shared a
little bit."
Mercier passed out real bees wax
to the pre-schoolers. Carr showed
how the hive works, and why the
bees do some of the things they
do.
The pair created a display with
honeycombs, a bee hive box, a
beekeeper suit and even a straight-to-DVD
presentation about Carr's
new work with bees. Carr produced,
ad-libbed and starred in the DVD.
Mercier set up shelves with bug
themed contests to enter and priz
es for children reading the most
books.
Among little known facts outside
of beekeeping circles, Carr passed
on the following tidbits:
Smoke makes bees go back into
the hive and gorge themselves
on honey, which calms them
down so the beekeeper can pull
out the hives. Bees eat honey to
bulk up for the anticipated flight,
and when they eat a lot, they get
drowsy Oike the rest of us). "You
gotta take a deep breath, and be
quiet and calm," she said.
Don't wear dark clothing, and
don't stand in front of a hive or
bees will think you are a bear
trying to steal the honey, and will
come out to defend the hive.
You can't save all the bee-like
varieties in the hopes of ending
up with more honeybees, because
wasps, hornets and yellow jackets
kill honeybees.
"Bees are so important to our
valuable food sources and a lot of
the beauty in our surroundings,"
said Mercier. B
Tnbe Dairgesft coinitiirnlbiLottoir fto ire ward! ffiminxril
ELK continued
from front page
large part, because of our Tribe's
prosecution of anyone who violates
rules and guidelines established by
the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife and the Tribe to the fullest
extent of the law.
"This reward will emphasize our
partnership with ODFW and the
Oregon Hunters Association in en
suring that the law in this matter
is upheld. It will bring the reward
fund to $17,500 and will assist in
the apprehension and prosecution
of violators."
The $1,500 donation makes the
Tribe the largest contributor to the
reward fund. The Oregon Hunt
ers Association State Hoard has
donated $1,000, the Josephine
County OH A chapter added $500
and a combined $8,500 was raised
by Roseburg-area land owners,
businesses, elk hunters and other
OH A chapters statewide.
"I think it's awesome," said Ty
Stubblefield, field administrator for
the Oregon Hunters Association,
about the Grand Ronde donation.
"It's getting realty ridiculous and
out of control, and it's going to
take money to make someone talk.
I didn't expect the Tribe to get in
volved and I never thought to ask
them. I think it's great."
All seven elk were shot near roads
in an area within about a three
mile radius near Glendale, which is
between Roseburg and Grants Pass
west of Interstate 5 in southwest
ern Oregon. Three of the elk were
killed in less than 10 minutes on
the morning of July 10.
"They're all part of that little
herd, actually several herds, that
wirt of hang around in that area,"
said Sgt. Dean Perske of the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife
Division office in Roseburg in the
July 16 Salem Statesman-Journal.
"They just frequent that area
a lot."
The shootings began in October
2007 when a trophy 7-by-7-point
bull was killed and left to rot.
Three more elk were killed between
October and April of this year and
then a lull occurred until the triple
shooting on July 10.
"These aren't even poachers,"
Perske said in the Statesman-tJour-nal.
"This is just people going out
to kill things. Poachers usually at
least cut off the horns or take the
backstraps out or something."
Only one of the seven bulls was
salvageable. Its meat was recovered
and donated to a food pantry in the
Roseburg area.
Perske speculated in the Salem
newspaper that whoever is killing
the elks is upset because they can
not get access to the animals during
legal hunting seasons.
People with tips or who want to
add to the reward fund should call
the Roseburg Oregon State Police
office at 541-440-3334, ext. 3417.
To remain anonymous and still be
eligible for the reward, people can
call the Hunters Turn In Poachers
line at 800-472-7888.
The Roseburg area is part of
the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde's ceded lands, which stretch
from the northern California bor
der, up through the Willamette
Valley, out to the Pacific coast on
the west and to the Cascade Moun
tains and slopes of Mount Hood on
the east, and along both sides of
the Columbia River up to North
Bonneville and the Cascade Locks
area. B