Our exhibit space is shifting toward displays that educate on topics related to the Arboretum's mission. Happily, education and art often intersect. For April and May 2026, we are featuring Scott Jost's photography. 

Celebrating Virginia’s Native Bees
Photographs by Scott Jost

On display at the Frances Plecker Education Center April and May 2026.

Artist’s Talk:
May 30, 2026 at 10am in the Frances Plecker Education Center.
Join us at this free lecture by Scott to learn more about native bees while surrounded by his astounding photography.

Native bees are bee species occurring naturally in a region where they are found. There are some 20,000 bee species in the world. About 4,000 bee species are native to the United States, and nearly 500 are native to Virginia. Native bees pollinate an estimated 80 percent of flowering plants around the world, including agricultural crops and plants that are critical to natural ecosystems on which all life depends.

I first photographed native bees in the summer of 2022. Before that, I had planned to do a photo project about honeybees and local beekeepers. It soon became evident to me, though, that honeybees, which I learned are native to Europe and not to North America, already have a lot of allies and are getting a lot of press. They will be okay.

As part of the “insect apocalypse,” many native bee species are declining due to habitat loss, invasive species, pesticide use, climate change, and introduced diseases. In some cases, honeybees are out-competing native bees for floral resources. Native bees, like animal species worldwide, need our active help to survive and thrive.

My intention for this exhibit is to celebrate beauty and inspire curiosity about native bees. I hope that by learning about and appreciating native bees, we will also act to protect and conserve them while also restoring the habitats on which they depend.

When I’m outside and there are lots of native bees around, I feel as though everything is right with the world. I hope that these photographs might help others to feel the same way.

Scott Jost received a B.A. in Art from Bethel College in 1985, and an M.F.A. in Art from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1993. He is Professor of Art at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia, teaching photography, videography, design foundations, and intermedia courses.

Scott has photographed native bees since 2022. Through photographing and learning about them he also became active in on-the-ground efforts to support and conserve native bees, through certification as a Virginia Master Naturalist, as a Pollinator Partnership Certified Pollinator Steward, by serving on Harrisonburg’s Pollinator Committee and through efforts to support Harrisonburg’s Pollinator Friendly City program.

In addition to numerous faculty research grants, most recently in 2025, Scott received the Faculty Scholarship Award from Bridgewater College in 2016 and the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges Maurice L. Mednick Memorial Fellowship in 2013. Scott’s photographs have been exhibited widely in Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region. His work is in the permanent collection of the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He is the author of Shenandoah Valley Apples (Columbia College Chicago Press, 2013) and Blacks Run: An American Stream (Center for American Places, 1999) and was the contributing photographer to The Great Valley Road of Virginia: Shenandoah Landscapes from Prehistory to the Present (University of Virginia Press, in association with the Center for the Study of American Places, 2010). His next book, Confluence: Rivers and Streams in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, is expected in Fall 2026.

Scott has two adult children. He lives in Harrisonburg with his wife, Kathy Holm.