Shelf Life Books: My New Favorite Book Store

It was a thrill to be warmly welcomed to Shelf Life Books in Calgary. What an amazing book store! There is lots of work by local authors, chap books, gorgeous gardening books, and just an amazing eclectic, well-curated selection of books. Yes, books. No chachkas, umbrellas, clothing and other useless crap. Very refreshing.

And one of the highlights of the trip was to meet two amazing local bee experts: bumblebee expert Dr. Ralph Cartar and ecologist Mark Wonneck, who helps farmers grow eco-buffers for bees. Ralph brought two examples of simple bumblebee boxes you can make and hang in trees. They are simply filled with organic upholstery cotton and hung in trees. He cleans them out at the end of the season and showed us the remnants of some nests.

One cool thing we learned was that healthy nests tend to only produce female bees. Weaker nests produce males. Huh.

 Mark brought a beautiful box of bees, which we oohed and aahed over. And then I asked each dude to choose a bee they thought should be the official bee of Alberta. A hilarious double act ensued, with Ralph choosing Bombus flavifrons and Mark nominating the Andrena bees of Alberta because they can carry so much pollen on their velvety bodies. He joked that the bumblebees are the charismatic mini fauna of the bee world. Actually, this gave me an idea: maybe each province and territory should have one official bumblebee and one official "other" bee. Just to bee fair.

I also finally learned how to pronounce Psytherus (SITH-er-us).  (Yes, like the Sith from Star Wars, as Mark pointed out). And Coelioxys is pronounced SEE- Lee-OX-is.

One of the staff even brought flowers from his garden for the display. How sweet!

I was very pleased that my family could attend the Calgary launch, along with some dear friends I haven't seen in a long time. It's so good for the heart to reconnect with those important folks to be able to share key moments in your life. And in such a rare gem of a bookstore.

Victory Gardens for Bees at Shelf Life Books in Calgary

No rest for the wicked! I am in Cochrane, Alberta getting ready to head to Shelf Life bookstore tomorrow for the Calgary Book Launch of Victory Gardens for Bees.

In the meantime, I still have some pics to show you from Sunday at Vancouver's Mini Maker Faire and especially some shots of embroidery ideas for the folks that bought my Beespeaker craftivism kits. Feel free to share the patterns, or modify them to spread the word about feeding the bees/no neonics please.

 The origami seed packets were a hit with the mini makers.

This is another cool craftivism project: You Are So Very Beautiful: #YASVB.

I Heart Saskatoon

While visiting Saskatoon, I fell in love with the city all over again. I love the low skyline and the "living skies". I love that the cab drivers insist you sit in the front seat with them. I love the skill and optimism of the local gardeners who breed color in tough conditions. I love the bees.

 I was curious why honeybees were visiting these peony buds. Aphid honeydew?

 Here's a bee oasis, with water for thirsty honeybees and rocks for them to perch on so they don't drown.

You can buy this bee condo at Wild Birds Unlimited. The stickers keep out parasitic wasps. You can also purchase this Xerces approved bee condo from Lee Valley.

In his book Native Plants for the Short Season Yard: Best Plants for the Chinook and Canadian Prairie Zones, Lyndon Penner points out that the silver lupin is the one native to the prairies. I highly recommend his book, BTW.  Since silver lupins might be difficult to find, this is one case where I think wild perennial lupins (let's call them near natives) would be fine to plant in a  prairie city garden.

These columbines were attracting tiny bees.

I am in love with the Little Bird pastry shop and Soul Paper.

 And I LOVE that Canadian bee scientist Cory Sheffield came all the way from Regina to attend my talk at and he BROUGHT BEES!!!! I find that when people see actual specimens of native bees it really affects them and inspires them to act to save these incredible creatures.

 And Cory was able to give detailed answers to some great questions and a suggestion for Saskatchewan's official bee.

After the event, it was time to order pizza and chill out in front of the fire as tent caterpillars crawled up our legs. Ahhhh! Well, not everything about Saskabush is loveable.


Thanks to the Saskatoon Public Library and Mcnally Robinson for helping me launch Victory Gardens for Bees in Saskatchewan.

My Aunt's Garden in Saskatoon

I spent a lovely afternoon in my aunt's garden in Saskatoon.

She has several lush ponds.

 I have never seen bee collecting pollen from grape vines, but honeybees and bumblebees were loading up on it. Grapes are pollinated by wind and gravity, but bees are definitely taking it back to their nests and hives.

 This large plant is mentioned in my book and I had never seen it in a garden: giant fleeceflower (Persicaria polymorpha). I would love to see this plant in bloom.

Anne told me she has very few haskap berries because the flowers froze when they were in bloom. I'm curious to know if other folks had this problem this year. She's sad that she won't have handfuls of fresh berries to toss into porridge and muffins.

My aunt's raspberries and her raspberry jams are legendary. I have many fond memories of picking golden and ruby raspberries on warm summer days.

 The raspberry blossoms were full of many species of bees. The native bees had a lot of competition from honeybees.

These are all herbs from my Aunt's garden. She is one of the best cooks I know.

She made curry and homemade chapatis for dinner and it was delicious! I also got to take home a jar of haskap jam. Lucky me!

Here's a great video on what makes it possible for bumblebees to pollinate haskap flowers in low temperatures.

Victory Gardens for Bees in Saskatoon

Yesterday I spent a lovely day at the Saskatoon Farmers Market promoting my book and helping kids make messages for the bees.

It was so blustery that I had to tape everything down.
 

 There are a lot of creative kids in Saskatoon.

Natale informed me that the red dots on her picture are bee stings.

I was lucky to be positioned near a fantastic local wildflower business called Blazing Star Wildflowers. This is like a candy shop to me and I was twitching to bring some of Lisa's plants home with me on the airplane. These are all great plants for bees. Saskatoon is so lucky to have this resource! Lisa really knows her wildflowers and there's lots of great information on her web site. They also sell heritage vegetable seeds.

Lisa's daughter was my helper bee of the day. She chased down all the things that would fly off my table with the big gusts of wind.

There was also a nursery selling herbs called Healthy Harvest Produce based in Clavet, Saskatchewan. Although not certified organic, they use organic practices (ie no pesticides), so that is another good place to buy your bee food plants from. 

I will be giving a lecture on Wednesday night, June 8 at 7 pm at the downtown Saskatoon Public Library.  I will be showing images of some of the different native bees, tips on what to grow to feed bees and inspiring bee forage projects. I'll also talk about my work  as a "bee mad" artist. You will be able to purchase books and I'd be happy to sign them.