This week we catch up with Lori Weidenhammer about her book Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees. Lori was recently through Corvallis for the Oregon Bee School and this offered an opportunity to talk about the book before class one morning. Lori is a Vancouver performance-based interdisciplinary artist and educator. As you hear in the show, she is originally from a tiny hamlet called Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan. It is in this place, bordered by wheat fields and wild prairie, that she first became enchanted with bees. For the past several years she has been appearing as the persona Madame Beespeaker, practicing the tradition of “telling the bees”. As a food security volunteer and activist Lori works with students of all ages on eating locally and gardening for pollinators.
Listen in to learn more about victory gardens, the cultural importance of bees over time, and how artists and scientists work together to educate the world.
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“If you want to grow food to feed yourself, you also need to feed the bees. We need to feed the bees.” – Lori Weidenhammer
Show Notes:
- How Lori became so passionate about bees
- Why it has been so important to “tell the bees” about birth and death
- How the conversation around and awareness of bees has changed
- What the victory gardens of World War II have to do with bees
- The many ways Lori’s community cooperates to make a community pollinator habitat
- What makes a garden a victory garden
- How herbs can make your garden more vibrant with pollinators and help your vegetables thrive
- Why a pollinator garden in a very small plot can still be extremely effective
- What Lori sees as the future of collaboration between artists and scientists
- How to engage kids into wonder and learning of pollinators
“Community gardens come and go, so what you really need to do is also have herbs, which are perennials that come back year after year to give a really good supply of pollen and nectar, and they can also act as medicine cabinets for bees.” – Lori Weidenhammer
Links Mentioned:
- Check out Lori’s book, Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees
- Find out more about Lori’s book recommendation: The Forgotten Pollinators (1997, Buchman and Paul Nebhan)
- Learn more about Lori’s go-to-tools:
- Lori’s favorite bee: Longhorn bees
- Connect with Lori Weidenhammer at her website, Victory Gardens for Bees