At Rogue Farms, we have the honor of carrying on the ancient art of beekeeping. Since 2012, our honeybees have pollinated and collected nectar from our marionberry, pumpkin, cucumber, lavender and Revolution Garden blossoms. They forage on our neighboring hazelnut, apple, plum and pear blossoms. These flavors capture the terroir of the farm to create the proprietary honey used in our Honey Kolsch.
Advertisement
Fun fact - There are three members of a honeybee colony:
Queen: Mother to all the bees in the colony. She is a fertile female.
Worker: An infertile female that performs the labor tasks of the colony including feed preparation; guarding the hive; feeding the queen, drones and brood; and heating and cooling the hive.
Drone: The male that starts out as an unfertilized egg. Its only purpose in the colony is to mate with a virgin queen. They live to mate with the queen, but only one in a thousand get the opportunity to mate.
Honey Kolsch is crafted with honey harvested from the 7,140,289 honeybees we keep at Rogue Farms in Independence, Oregon.
Getting Buzzed
An Interview With Rogue Farms Beekeeper George
Why are bees so important to Rogue Farms?
Rogue Farms has always taken a very proactive approach to growing the very ingredients that make the beers and spirits so unique and delicious, as evidenced by the outstanding Revolution Garden at the farm. Keeping bees plays hand in hand with the success and quality of the garden and the ingredients used and experimented with behind the scenes by the Brew Masters. Beekeeping is becoming somewhat of a lost art; we at Rogue are doing what we can locally to keep the practice alive and well moving into the future. Pollination of the marionberries, pumpkins and jalapeños help produce some of the very best honey in the Willamette Valley. I really feel like, as important as the bees are to Rogue Farms, the Farms is equally important to the bees.
Can you talk about the relationship between bees, hops and brewing?
My personal favorite is the use of honey in beer, I am a sucker for honey beers. Hops to brewing is an obvious relationship. A lesser known, is the relationship of hops to bees. Hops do not require pollination, so how do they relate? The hops contain a beta-acid that has been found effective in controlling mites. The biggest challenge faced by bees is the Varroa mite. Of the many treatments available to the beekeeper to “treat“ for mites, this hopderived treatment is a good natural tool to assist in controlling mite populations in a colony. We at Rogue will be undertaking some experimental work in extracting the natural chemicals from hops, in the hopes of helping with the mites. Exciting stuff so stay tuned.
What is the most important aspect of a healthy colony?
The most important aspect of colony health is the QUEEN. She is the key to everything. A good young healthy robust queen sets the tone and pace of a hive. Her ability to lay quality eggs and populate a hive with strong worker bees is the key to success or failure of a hive. The traits and genetics that she passes on our the building blocks of the hive and its characteristics. Such as genteelness, hive build up in spring, honey production and resistance to mites to name a few. We at Rogue have been using Italian queens for the last few years almost exclusively. Stay tuned as this year we are going to acquire a more diverse population of queens from various sources to diversify our genetic pool.
What can people do to help save the bee population?
There are a number of things people can do to help bees. Think early and late! Bees can always use help with plants that flower either early in the season or very late in the season. I try to plant mints, lavenders and clovers as ground covers wherever practical—anything with open type flowers. Blackberries are one of their main food sources, if you can leave patches of berries wild the bees will love them. Flowering trees offer a big bang for the space. Flowering cherry trees, pussy willows, maple trees, linden trees and locust trees are just a few that bees will find irresistible. Another often overlooked helping hand is water sources—fish ponds, bird baths and water gardens. Bees like to get a good drink in. And last but not least please use sprays with caution if you must and always follow the instructions on the label.
