Olivia Carril, Author of Bees in Your Backyard, will teach hands-on workshop that includes bee identification using microscopes as well as field experiences with plant and bee experts.

There has recently been a positive shift in our perspective toward insects. More and more we are awakening to the dramatic lives of insects and our utter dependency upon them. Attracting pollinators to our gardens is becoming as popular as cultivating the plants that nourish them. We are even investing in near-focus binoculars to watch them! Thus we are proud to host a weekend of courses that will greatly advance your knowledge of pollinators – taught by experts who also happen to be extraordinary teachers. We encourage you to read up on our speakers' biographies.

THE SATURDAY COURSE focuses on bees, their natural history, and their identification, including an afternoon trip to the field to watch bees in action while practicing ID skills. There are roughly 20,000 species of bees world-wide and over 400 species in Ohio, ranging in size from .2 inches to an inch long. If communal living, cooperative food collecting efforts, and specialized social roles drives the evolution of intelligence, then bees and wasps are the "primates" of the insect world. In this course we will study not just the charismatic bumblebees and carpenter bees, but the smaller sweat bees, mason bees, and leafcutting bees that often go unnoticed.

THE SUNDAY COURSE focuses on cultivating bees in your backyard and designing your gardens to be able to shelter a high diversity of native pollinators. You will learn pollinator gardening basics, how to shift your garden to "go native," how to identify common backyard pollinators, the importance of providing native nectar sources, how to include host plants for fascinating caterpillar species, and where to purchase native plants. You will also be taught how to create specialized habitats for bee nests in your backyard by crafting your own take-home bee shelters for a variety of species.

Arc of Appalachia

7660 Cave Road
Bainbridge, OH 45612

Contact:
Denise Ellsworth / 330-263-3723 /

http://arcofappalachia.org/bee-workshop/