By T.C. Conner

The Write Gardener

Avid gardeners and other interested parties didn’t let a winter storm that dropped over seven inches of snow last Saturday stop them from attending the Mercer County Master Gardener’s ’Come Grow With Us!’ seminar. Guest speakers Rick Mikula, Jim Higgins, and Scott Weikert presented the day-long seminar at Mercer County Cooperative Extension, Leslie N. Firth Learning Center on Route 19, one mile north of Mercer. Approximately 55 brave travelers attended.

Rick Mikula hails from Hazleton, Pa., and is known as ’That Butterfly Guy.’ Rick’s presentation was a crowd pleaser as he discussed various interesting facts and folklore pertaining to butterflies. For instance, he said butterflies used to be associated with death, and that going back 8,000 years, ’People always felt that when we died we became butterflies and with those wings we went to Heaven. And in many languages the words ’soul’ and ’butterfly’ are actually the same word. So I think it’s very special to release them at funerals.’

Mikula pointed out that butterfly releases are also popular at birthday parties, graduations, and divorces.

’My philosophy is if you get rid of that lazy son-of-a-gun, you may as well have a party and let some butterflies go,’ he said.

The next speaker was Jim Higgins from Hillsboro, Ohio. Higgins is a beekeeper and president of the Highland County Beekeepers Association. ’Dr. Sting,’ as Higgins is referred to by fellow beekeepers, administers bee stings from his home for various ailments including arthritis, hormonal problems, tennis elbow, bursitis, fibromyalgia, and carpal tunnel syndrome. During his presentation, Higgins asked if anyone was experiencing sinus problems. ’How many of you in here have a sinus problem right now?’ Several hands were raised. ’If you will eat a teaspoon of honey, wax and all, check your watch, in 30 minutes or less your sinuses are going to open up and be fine for the day,’ Higgins said. This type of therapy is known as apitherapy and includes six products from bee hives: honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly and bee venom.

Higgins astonished the audience by allowing himself to be stung on the wrist by a honeybee. His display of apitherapy products included a screened box of several honeybees for just this purpose. ’The stinger has three points to it, nestled together with a little cavity between the three points that becomes Mother Nature’s hypodermic needle,’ Higgins said. ’Two of those points have barbs at the sides, so when it hits you, one of these will seat under the skin and hold so that the other one can go in,’ Higgins explained.

He also pointed out that after stinging, the honeybee dies within 24 hours because it disembowels itself after depositing its stinger. The stinger has a bulbous sac loaded with venom, and the sac acts as a pumping unit for discharging venom.

Higgins likened this process to a computer system. ’Bees don’t have the nervous system that you and I have; it’s kind of like having computer chips hither and thither around the body that do their thing in their part of the body independent of the rest of the body.’

Scott Weikert, forest resources educator for Penn State Extension in Forest County, gave a Power Point presentation on what gardeners and homeowners might do to increase their chances of attracting birds and other beneficial wildlife to their landscapes.

’Water is probably one of the most important and often overlooked aspects that wildlife needs,’ Weikert said. ’Many times if you can just add water if there’s none around, it can be a real magnet for all kinds of different birds.’ Weikert suggested planting raspberries to attract birds in summer and said, ’Dogwoods tend to fruit late summer into fall, crabapples and hawthorns bear their fruit in fall, but these can last well into winter. I still have a crabapple in my yard that’s just loaded, so some plants will tend to hold their fruit longer into winter.’

Weikert stressed to those wanting to add new landscape plants that they be knowledgeable about which plants bear fruit.