Nde' Iyanee Bikiyaa

11/15/2025

My dad has bees.Today I went to his house and he showed me all of the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off of a 5 gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them and he said he was sure they wouldn't survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose.

I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly, after all he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside.
Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, there were bees flying all over outside.

We put the 3 little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all of their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters.

When it was time for me to leave we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty.

Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free.
Bee Sisters. Bee Peers. Bee Teammates.

We could all learn a thing or two from these bees.
Bee kind always.

10/19/2025

09/08/2025

07/18/2025

Research, Soil Health, Western Region, Wyoming
From degraded to restored: how soil mycorrhizal fungi react to restoration management practices
By Jane Sylvestre │ University of Wyoming Extension
July 14, 2025

Native prairie ecosystems have been disappearing across North America since the agricultural revolution of the 1800s. The increased need for higher crop yields, infrastructure, and resource extraction were the main instigators of the loss. Although these are important drivers for the United States’ economy, crop efficiency has increased, oil wells are drying up, and infrastructure gets abandoned. This has led to an effort to transition degraded land back to the once-dominant tallgrass prairies. But how do these transitions affect the overall health of the land?

Jennifer Bell, assistant professor of soil science at the University of Wyoming, along with colleagues from the Morton Arboretum and Northern Illinois University, conducted a research project highlighting exactly that. Their recently published paper “Bison and burn timing shape arbuscular mycorrhizal diversity and community composition in tallgrass prairie restorations” links the effects of the management practices, grazing and controlled burning, on the health of soil mycorrhizal fungi.

These fungi are the backbone of prairie ecosystems, responsible for the all-important exchange of nutrients in the soil to the root system of almost all functional plant life.

Soil mycorrhizal fungi survive on the sugars provided from plant roots; on the other hand, the plants utilize the fungi for increased access to water and nutrients. “We often think of soil as useless and just dirt. But that is not true at all,” Bell says.

With the fungi structure being a web of long interconnected fibers, the mycorrhizae associated with each plant within the soil are generally longer than the associated plant’s entire root system.

In Nachusa Grasslands of north-central Illinois, Bell studied the health and recovery of mycorrhizal fungi after the restoration to tallgrass prairie from historically row-cropped land. The practices she focused on were controlled burns and grazing, in this case by bison.

Bell found that the abundance, diversity, and community composition of the mycorrhizal fungi were relatively unaffected by fire, but bison impacted community composition and diversity, likely caused by bison-driven changes in the plant community. Recovery of the mycorrhizae happened quickly after burning and restoration, indicating that mycorrhizae can likely recover without added inputs.

While this quick recovery was unexpected, it is actually very important for the land manager. With the new knowledge that the fungi are quite resilient to changes and recover from disturbance quickly, managers now know that mycorrhizae can be restored along with the tallgrass prairie and that they are not causing direct harm to their soil through these specific management practices. Current practices proven to be useful in land restoration projects, like controlled burns, may not need to be adjusted to accommodate conservation of fungi.

Although soil and the life it houses has proven resilient in this study, Bell wants to make sure managers do not forget about the importance of life below ground. During an interview she stated, “Don’t take advantage of your soil.” With the naked eye you cannot see life within the soil, but do not let the invisible be forgotten.

In the future, Bell plans to release more research from Illinois answering the question “How do different plantings with different levels of phylogenetic traits affect the soil microbial communities and soil nutrient cycling?”

In Wyoming she wants to potentially look into the effects of bison on soil health in more locations, due to bison abundance and establishment in Yellowstone and potential introduction on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Bell has a deep love and interest for soil, which makes it exciting to see where she takes her research next!

Bell and her collaborators published their findings in the scientific journal Applied Soil Ecology in February 2025.

Photo: Jennifer Bell bison at Nachusa Grasslands (Photo: Jennifer Bell – University of Wyoming)

https://hpj.com/2025/07/14/from-degraded-to-restored/

07/10/2025

So proud of our Lipan sister ✊️ making many Buffalo tracks!!

Lucille Contreras’ days start with a trip around her ranch in the Central Texas town of Waelder to greet the l’yane—which means buffalo in her Lipan Apache language—as they play their usual game of hiding around different parts of the ranch.

On the days where she finds them all together, she says the moment is nothing short of beautiful. “It gives me good peace of mind and helps me to realign and refocus,” Contreras says.

She’s the founder of the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project, a nonprofit dedicated to reconnecting Indigenous Texans to the region’s native buffalo, also known as the American bison, and educating others on traditional practices. It’s also one of the only woman-owned buffalo ranches in the country.

The operation, which Contreras dreamed up during the pandemic, rehabilitates herds of buffalo while also offering workshops and opportunities for visitors to volunteer in ranch activities and take part in cultural events for all ages. At their children’s day care and camp events, guests can experience tipi housing and Indigenous medicine-making on the property. The ranch also sells buffalo meat in various cuts at farmers markets and through their online shop.

Learn more about the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project here: https://bit.ly/4ereOCH