Here in the verdant Mosier area, if you plant yourself down at flower level this summer and give yourself a soft, yogic gaze, you will likely encounter the amazing world of bees. The busy bee is an organism of vitality, motion, complex engineering, highly developed senses, and necessity. The 500 species in Oregon and Washington contribute a staggering interaction with our natural world that helps sustain our food and ecosystems – and ultimately all of us who live and thrive here.
I recently spoke with Double Strand Wine founder and co-owner Kevin McCabe. He is not only a winemaker but a beekeeper. He pointed me to data that suggests bees appeared 120 million years ago, about the same time flowers emerged, evolving from a kind of prehistoric wasp that was solely reliant on pollen and nectar from plants as a food resource, even in the larval stage. Some 90 percent of plants we know today were part of this evolutionary explosion caused and heavily abetted by the rise of bees and pollination.
These emergent pollinators, including common Apis mellifera (honeybee) and Bombus (bumblebee) among others, did much to perpetually enrich, nurture and evolve our beautiful world.
From the Double Strand winery, McCabe, who is genuinely excited about educating anyone who will listen, pointed out some amazing insight about bees.
Mosier Valley News: You've mentioned both honeybees and native bees. But let's start with you. How long have you been keeping bees?
Kevin McCabe: [Wife] Emily and I have been keeping honeybees off and on since we moved here—about 13 or 14 years. Her dad used to keep bees, and we inherited one of his old hives. Like most beekeepers, we've had varying degrees of success.
MVN: What part of the lore or science intrigues you?
Kevin: Honeybees are incredibly communal, communicative organisms. When you think about a hive, it's really the colony that matters, not the individual bee. You have to have a healthy queen laying eggs, workers taking care of the brood, enough food, protection from parasites and diseases, and you have to manage overcrowding. There's always something happening. What I find fascinating is that it operates as a colony.
MVN: How does a honeybee colony function?
Kevin: The queen lays eggs, and the worker bees do almost everything else. They raise the young, clean the hive, collect nectar and pollen, defend the colony, and communicate with each other. Almost all of the hive is female. The drones are the males, and their primary purpose is mating with a new queen. Once that's done, they don't contribute much and are often kicked out before winter because the colony doesn't want to feed them. The foragers communicate where the good food is literally by scent and dance. It's an amazingly sophisticated system.
MVN: Is honey just a byproduct of all of this?
Kevin: Pretty much. Honey is valuable to me. I have an estate mead from honey I harvested in ’23 and ’24 that I’ll be releasing soon. But I also enjoy keeping the bees themselves. They help pollinate our property and neighboring orchards.
MVN: What about native bees?
Kevin: Native bees are incredible. We have hundreds of species around here. Blue orchard bees, for example, are solitary mason bees. Instead of living in colonies, each female builds little mud homes for their offspring, fills them with pollen for the developing larva, lays an egg, seals it up, and starts another one. They're amazing insects.
Bumble bees are different again. They’re solitary, semi-communal and are responsible for buzz pollination, which crops like tomatoes and squash depend on. Honeybees can't do that.
MVN: There seem to be an incredible number of bee species.
Kevin: There are. I am amazed at how many kinds there are just flying around my place. I love them as organisms. Tens of thousands worldwide and hundreds in our neck of the woods. Some we see, some we don’t. Once you start paying attention, you realize there are bees everywhere. They help with our neighbors’ fruit orchards and they pollinate everything else, too.
MVN: Is it healthy for bees here?
Kevin: There’s so much land around us that’s kept wild with plenty of forage. Honeybees need nectar for carbohydrates and pollen for protein throughout the season. During dry summers, they can struggle because flowers stop producing nectar. If I had hives right now, I'd be feeding bees because there’s not much forage. Native bees are generally better adapted to our local conditions because they've evolved here.
MVN: Are native bees better pollinators than honeybees?
Kevin: That’s mostly true. Honeybees are more like generalists. They'll visit almost anything. Native bees are often highly specialized and much more efficient on certain plants because they've co-evolved with those flowers. That's why some flowers have pollinators that fit them almost perfectly. It’s a wild world.
MVN: Why do orchards bring in honeybees?
Kevin: To make sure that every flower is pollinated so that they can have the maximum amount of production for their orchard. They could probably rely on native bees, but it wouldn’t be as productive. That’s why you see bees getting trucked around in the spring, which is its own business, too.
The people’s role with native bees
MVN: Can people help native bees?
Kevin: Absolutely. One of the simplest things is leaving hollow stems after pruning. Many solitary bees nest inside hollow plant stems. Ground-nesting bees also need undisturbed soil, so reducing tilling and leaving natural areas alone can make a big difference. Some people even say don’t rake leaves. And pre-made bee houses can work, but they need to be managed properly. Some of the commercially available ones aren't ideal.
MVN: Have you seen examples of bees adapting to human structures?
Kevin: Actually, yes. When we built our house, the siding happened to have tiny gaps that were exactly the right size for blue orchard mason bees. Every spring the east side of the house becomes incredibly active as they're flying in and out of those little spaces. We didn't plan it, but it's turned into fantastic habitat.
The bee’s off-season
MVN: What happens during winter?
Kevin: The honeybees overwinter as a colony. But they need a lot of food stored away to do it, to maintain the internal temperature of their hive by consuming the honey and buzzing to generate warmth. It’s basically a ball of bees. Most solitary bees don't survive as adults. Instead, they leave offspring sealed safely in nests, and the next generation emerges the following year.
MVN: Do you have a sense when you start seeing bees, say in March?
Kevin: Bees and flowers basically go together. When we start seeing the earliest grass widows on the south-facing hillside, as early as January this year, and February. One concern is that climate change may cause flowers to bloom before their specialized pollinators emerge, creating mismatches that can affect both plants and bees.
MVN: Do honeybees compete with native bees?
Kevin: Somewhat, but not as dramatically as people sometimes suggest. They compete for food, but in places like ours, where there's abundant wild habitat and diverse flowering plants, both can thrive. Having honeybees isn’t going to decimate the wild bee population.
MVN: Are there other things people can do?
Kevin: There are a lot of strategies for supporting native bees. Putting out flowers they like. If you do want to plant a bee garden, make sure you’re using native plants, not invasives. Leave some natural habitat – don't remove every hollow stem or dead branch. Reduce unnecessary tilling. Think about providing nesting habitat, not just flowers.
Bees and wine
MVN: One of the most surprising things you mentioned to me was that bees as pollinators evolved along with the flowers. Other implications?
Kevin: It's fascinating. Flowers typically form fruit, right? Can bees make better wine? Researchers are looking at how pollinators can carry yeasts with them as they pollinate, which then stay on the fruit and contribute to its fermentation. Those yeasts may influence fermentation and ultimately affect the character of wine. It's another example of how interconnected these ecological systems really are.
MVN: It sounds like the more you learn about bees, the more connected everything becomes.
Kevin: Exactly. You start with bees and flowers, then you get into fruit, fermentation, yeast, evolution, agriculture, climate and biodiversity. Everything is connected. The more people understand even a little bit about pollinators, the more they'll appreciate the landscapes they live in and the complex natural systems that support all of us.
