Bee Friendly Vineyards Background
There is a large land-use change happening in Oregon. Large amounts of acreage historically fallow, in oak tree savanna, or in pasture, is being transitioned into wine grapes. Native and non-native floral resources are often removed, which can harm our bees, other beneficial insects, and important belowground livestock like mycorrhiza and earthworms.
Seeing this as an issue for native bees, honey bees, and beekeepers BGO founder and director, Sarah Red-Laird, implored local vineyard managers to use headlands and alleyways (vineyard property not planted in grapes) to provide habitat for bees (flowers). Wine grapes are self-pollinating, so it was a hard sell.
Finally, while chatting with a wine grape grower in 2011, Sarah learned that the grower had been utilizing sunflowers to eliminate honey bee predation of grapes and honey bee / vineyard worker stings! Eureka! A win-win solution.
In 2011-2012 BGO was awarded a small budget from the Bee Friendly Farming (BFF) initiative to work on a collaboration between the LIVE certification and the BFF label. While she was able to make many connections, enroll a few vineyard partners in the BFF program, and plant a few “seeds” of inspiration – the mindset just wasn’t there, budget ran out quickly and the initiative lay dormant.
After years of chatting up wine makers – BGO’s “Bee Friendly Vineyards” pilot program finally took off in April of 2019. With the help of our squad of volunteers, we launched our program by planting 1,800-square-feet of sunflowers on a plot of previously unused land at Irvine & Robert’s Ashland, Oregon, vineyard. Our sunflower plot attracted bees, provided vital habitat to pollinators and other beneficial insects, stabilized and built soil, and impressed tasting room visitors. In recent studies, sunflowers have also been shown to increase bees’ resistance to pathogens and parasites. Win-win!
Staring in the spring of 2020, we doubled the sunflower plot, added in-row flowering cover crops, and expanded our efforts to northwestern Oregon for an in-depth research, habitat, and education project in Willamette Valley wine country with Trisaetum Winery. Check out the pictures below, and click here for a blog on our collaborative project for more details!
As of 2022 our project has expanded to a collaboration with Trisaetum Winery, Hope Well Wine @ Bethel Heights Vineyard, and Bledsoe-McDaniels Winery to build bee habitat refugia, healthy soil, informed community, outstanding wine, and inspiring art!
For more pics, follow the hashtag #beefriendlyvineyards on Instagram; keep an eye on our blog for updates; and mark your calendar for a BGO art exhibit at Gambrel Gallery in Ashland, Oregon, September 6th – 10th.