Geum triflorum, Prairie Smoke

Artist: Sarah Red-Laird

Title: Bee Habitat in Cyanotype 37

Location: J Bar L Ranch, Montana

Project: Coexistence & Bee Habitat Regeneration in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Flower: Geum triflorum, Prairie Smoke

Bee: Bombus, Bumble bee

Materials: Cyanotype, encaustic, ink, barnwood

Field Season: 2023

Composed: 2023

Beginning in 2023, BGO is starting a multi-year collaboration with the Anderson family, and three Montana ranches that they collectively manage: J Bar L in Centennial Valley, and the Anderson Ranch and Grizzly Creek in Tom Miner Basin.

In 2018 BGO’s executive program director, Sarah Red-Laird, attended a workshop at EcoFarm titled, “Range Riders: Coexisting with Predators,” featuring J Bar L Ranch’s Hilary Zaranek.  As a student in the University of Montana’s “Wilderness and Civilization” program in 2008-2009, Sarah was all-too-familiar with the dynamic between Montana ranchers and wolf re-introduction.  She hung on every word of the poetic presentation on low-stress livestock handling techniques and living within her cattle herd to protect them from bears and wolves (and vice versa, in a way), but what stuck with Sarah was the accounts of ecosystem recovery.  Sarah questioned how Jar Bar L’s management transition to predator coexistence could affect local bee communities, did they recover along with the rest of the ecosystem? 

Hilary’s experience of the return of biodiversity as a result of livestock grazing altercation and reintroduction of wolves, beaver, and bears mirrors those of similar projects in Oregon, Wyoming, and Nevada.  Though there is ample evidence to prove trophic recovery from coexistence, a rigorous long-term study specifically on bees affected by this management tactic has not been published.          

BGO is collaborating with the Anderson family to better understand the dynamic between the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s livestock, predators, and bees – to explore the question, could livestock/predator coexistence on rangelands be a key to diverse bee community conservation? 

I can’t look at this flower without thinking of Dr. Suess’ “Horton Hears a Who.” I suppose this is fitting, as my formulative years were steeped in Dr. Suess’ tales of environmental activism, kindness to all things large and small, and finding the bright side when all seems grim.

These themes seem to be underlying in all we do at BGO.

Though I was being eaten alive by black flies on a mountain top in the Centennial Valley while harvesting these flowers (so wasn’t able to sit for a complete monitoring day) - I did notice bumble bees enjoying “prairie smoke,” and I can’t wait to return to this spot with a head to toe net to get a more complete picture of this flower’s bees along with the vast diversity of other flowers also spotted in the gem of biodiversity that is J Bar L.

This plant is becoming exceedingly rare, pushed out by introduced plants that now dominate the prairie states. Because of J Bar L’s impeccable management, prairie smoke is thriving in it’s home here.

Prairie smoke is edible and Native Americans boiled the roots to produce a root tea that was used medicinally for a variety of purposes such as wound applications and sore throat treatments.

Learn more about the plant here, learn more about