Paige Embry’s multi-year immersion into the lives of America’s native bees began with a gardening epiphany—European-import honey bees can’t pollinate tomatoes, but a variety of native bees can. This realization led to an obsession with native bees that cascaded into taking classes, wading through the scientific literature, raising bees, participating in bee science, modifying her garden, and trekking into fields and onto farms with bee experts to learn who America’s bees really are, and how they are faring. It also led to a book.
Paige has spent her adult life involved in science and nature, latching onto something and loving it hard for a long time. She fell in love with geology in the very first geology class in college and then with plants and gardening when she moved to Seattle nearly 30 years ago. She started a garden design and coaching business and has taught classes on geology, soils, gardening, and pruning. She began writing to promote the business and discovered the pleasure of writing and the power of story-telling. She’s been surprised to find that her Georgia roots, which she thought were long-decayed, sneak into her writing.
In addition to her book, Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them (Timber Press, 2018) Paige has written for Horticulture, The American Gardener, Scientific American, the Food and Environmental Reporting Network and others.
In her talks Paige weaves bee facts and gardening tips into stories. America's four thousand species of native bees flit about the countryside in the shadow of their charismatic cousin, the honey bee, and in her talks Paige hopes show people how varied, fascinating, and useful those native bees are—and how easy it is to share a yard with them.
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