Barr Hill Distillery hosts Bee’s Knees Week to save pollinators

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) - Caledonia Spirits Barr Hill Gin has a mission to save the bees. This week you can help out pollinators across the region by sipping a popular honey-based drink.

The thousands of pollinators that call Vermont home are losing their habitat to factors like climate change and single crop farming. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department says planting pollinator plants can help.

Barr Hill Distillery was founded by a beekeeper. Tonya Martel, hospitality and events manager, says this week combines its love of gin and honey to save the bees.

“We were already shaking up a delicious cocktails, and we wanted to support pollinators while doing it,” Martel said. “It only made sense that we would create this grassroots campaign to talk about pollinators and get habitats planted via sharing of a cocktail,”

Every summer since 2017, the distillery hosts Bee’s Knees Week. A nationwide campaign in which the distillery plants a pollinator-friendly plant for every Bee’s Knees cocktail made and shared on social media.

“There are thousands of bars participating all over the United States,” Martel said. “Right now, we’ve got over 1.4 million square feet planted in the history of Bees Knees week,”

According to Vermont Fish and Wildlife, between 60 and 80 percent of wild plants in Vermont are dependent on pollinator animals, like bees, for reproduction. In turn, a loss of pollinator plants contributes to the endangerment of bees. Three bee species in Vermont are considered endangered or threatened.

“We have found that in talking about pollinators via hospitality and via making drinks, people are so much more engaged with it because they can taste what the honey does and they would be very sad if they didn’t have that wonderful ingredient to put into drinks and food,” Martel said.

Honey is the key piece to the simple three ingredient drink.

“It’s a classic cocktail. It just involves gin, lemon, and honey,” Martel said.

Pollinator plants lose their habitats to disease epidemics brought into the state by nonnative species. This trend is why Barr Hill focuses its initiative on native plants.

“When you plant native plants, the pollinators come tenfold. They are drawn to that. It’s something that’s beneficial to them. It also just makes delicious honey,” Martel said.

Swarming season for honeybees is in full swing with its peak ending in July.