264. Power Polinators Improve Your Yields | Rent Mason Bees | Rockstar Millennial Olivia Shangrow | Bothel, WA

Olivia Shangrow is an Awesome Rockstar Millennial and the biologist and operations specialist for Rent Mason Bees. She completed her bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Washington. She’s passionate about teaching the public about wild bees and her research focuses on increasing the value of rural and urban habitats for native insects.

I can share information on the mason bee lifecycle, what to grow in your garden to support them, and the best ways to care for/host them in your backyard

We’re up north of Seattle in Bothel, we do some propagation in Oregon too!

We travel a lot but when we’re actually hands on in Washington

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’ve always been interested in bees my whole life, myself have been hearing the bees are struggling and our bee populations are down.

I just decided when I was finishing school I wanted to do more to help bees and that’s how I ended up running a program where I rent bees.

I have to back up a little what made you want to go to college and get a science degree and what about bees? Watching Bee movie?

I think I’ve always loved all types of animals!

I can’t remember when I first decided that I thought bees were awesome!

I had heard of the honeybee before but I ended up I took a class in between high school and college where I learned about the Mason bee.

That opened up my world to something I never knew existed. When I went to college I went back and forth between different programs, I finally settled on biology that coupled my love for nature but would help me get a job in the future. I wanted something that was applicable and hands-on

Anytime I got to do any kind of independent focus where I got to pick what I was studying I always chose bees

When I was senior research project

went out to one of the

power pollinator patches

stuck my head in big bushes of flowers and counting the bees

Identifying

• honeybees
• bumblebees
• anything I could find

had so much fun with all of those projects it landed after I was in college I ended up with a job in bees.

I always say you never know what you are going to learn in college what jobs that you will learn about, I always tell them take any job you can to travel. I got to take a class in Olympia in Washington where we studied starfish and all sorts of cool sea anenomes. I love how you picked places to learn about bees. I don’t actually know anything about mason bees other then their a native bee?

So sure, they’re a native bee found in the US

there are a lot in the pacific northwest, their range is pretty broad.

a bunch of different...