6 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t
D G THIS
O
nce seasonal visitors to Jordan Vineyard & Winery, honey bees are the latest ad-
dition to the estate's growing family of flora and fauna. Jordan's apiary is home
to a groundbreaking invention for boutique beekeepers called the Flow Hive.
For the past two decades, a professional beekeeper has been making an
annual sojourn from the Sacramento Valley to Jordan's 1,200-acre Alexander
Valley estate, bringing dozens of hives for winter foraging before the almond
bloom season. Those "visiting" bees now share their foraging space with resi-
dents living in Australian-designed hives that allow honey to be harvested by simply turning on a tap.
Before the Flow Hives were introduced, Jordan Executive Chef Todd Knoll had been buying honey
from Northern California apiaries and top international honey producers. Every December, he also
received a half-dozen jars of honey from the visiting beekeeper, whose 50 beehives spend the winters
in a meadow surrounded by woods at the edge of Jordan's Petit Verdot vineyards.
Jordan Winery Executive
Chef Todd Knoll points to
the Flow Hive's flow frames,
which make harvesting honey
as easy as turning on a tap.
by Deborah Parker Wong / photos by John Curley
