Home Hiving

TESUQUE PUEBLO — In ancient times Egyptians built homes that in modern parlance could be called "bee-friendly."



During house construction they left a tube-shaped space in an outside adobe wall of the home — just the right spot for bees to build a hive. Like collecting eggs from the chickens, or tomatoes from the vine, Egyptian family members went to this tube every day and, with a special long spoon, reached inside to collect nutrient-laden pollen and honey.



That’s one of the stories master beekeeper Les Crowder tells students, and it’s borne out in Egyptian hieroglyphics and drawings, where the bee figures prominently as a part of daily life. Crowder says the Egyptians kept thousands of bee hives in baskets on barges that went up and down the Nile.



They learned beekeeping from the Nigerians, who similarly have been depicted in ancient pictures — aloft in trees, using smoke to calm bees.



It’s a story for our times because as mysterious as beekeeping might seem to the modern adobe dweller, with the proper approach, answers and attitude one can learn to "keep" bees — whether it’s for the therapeutic uses of pollen and honey, for growing a greater garden, or for giving bees a place to thrive.



Ken Hays, who is president of both the New Mexico Beekeepers Association and the Albuquerque Growers Market, is quick to offer two reasons why people should keep bees: "Without bees, you just don’t have as good a garden. And second, Albuquerque is one of the best places to make honey in the state."

A honeybee carries bright red pollen collected from flowers near Tesque Pueblo Farms.

Albuquerque residents "nurture their flowers" with great gusto, he explains, making for great flower gardens and a bountiful source of nectar for the bees.



According to New Mexico State Bee Inspector Gary Watson, only one New Mexico municipality, Alamogordo, prohibits urban beekeeping. Ordinance 7-01-020 makes it "unlawful to keep any livestock, poultry, bees or exotic animals."



But while there is no law against it in other cities, to keep bees "you need to work with your neighbors," Hays says. "They could get you on the nuisance ordinance, just like a barking dog."



Hays acknowledges that beekeeping is not for everyone. "I call (some people) bee ‘havers’; they have bees, don’t know how to deal with them and end up killing them." But he says it’s important to have committed beekeepers in urban areas so that they can be called upon to take care of the feral, or "wild" bees that gravitate toward those tempting gardens to make their hives.

Saving Swarms



During a recent phone call to Hays, the conversation was interrupted every couple of minutes as he answered a second line. The first call was obviously about a swarm: "Is it in a tree or a bush? … You’re in Belen? … I’ve got a guy in Belen. He’ll come and get ‘em."



Crowder, who used to keep bees with Hays near Truth or Consequences, says there are at least 30 beekeepers all over the state who will take care of swarms — thousands of bees hanging together in a ball as scouts go out looking for a new place to colonize.



Just like the tube in the Egyptian dwelling, a crack in an adobe parapet or canale is appealing to a scout bee. Or she might end up leading the swarming hive to an attic or under an eave.



The number of swarms this year is an indicator of the health of New Mexico’s bees, in comparison to the multitude of places around the world reporting colony collapse. Hays says: "I know one guy who already picked up 75 swarms this year. Another picked up 30."



"If you outlaw beekeeping, you’ll have all kinds of bee problems because feral bees swarm," he adds.



Taking care of swarms is a way for beekeepers to get bees, so they’re happy to oblige by collecting them. Hays says if you encounter a swarm, call him at 505-869-2369, and he’ll call the beekeeper closest to the swarm to come and get it. Usually bees start swarming the last week in April.

 

Most bees in a swarm cannot sting, Hays said, because they’re traveling with a full honey sac, ready to create a new hive. Some of the bees that break away from the swarm to scout a new hive site might sting if you bother them, but "swarms are very non-aggressive."



Crowder says he feels encouraged that some people who call him are willing to pay more to ensure the swarm is moved safely and unharmed. Sometimes it can take hours to remove a hive if it’s in an unusual place.





 

Master beekeeper Les Crowder shows students honeycomb on a "top bar" hive.

Backyard Beekeeping

Backyard beekeeping makes sense in light of widespread reports of "mysterious" bee colony collapse — as much sense as it does to grow one’s own vegetables and fruits.



Because pollinators of all types are threatened by pesticides, genetically modified crops and other industrial farming methods, "we as members of the community need to pick up the slack," says Crowder. Upward of 350 to 400 New Mexicans have taken it on as a hobby or profession, according to Hays. The New Mexico Beekeepers Association has 70 dues-paying members.



"I’ve set up over 200 hives in Albuquerque — at least" over the past 10 to 15 years, Hays says.



Crowder has been keeping bees since he was a child. Growing up with his organic farmer grandfather, it was simply what he learned.

He remembers with great clarity a day when, although he was still a young boy, he realized the significance of bees as a connecting force. The sun was shining brilliantly on a mint patch that had sprung up near an outdoor faucet at his childhood home in Bernalillo. The mint was atop what had been cultivated as a worm bed, and bees were all over the mint flowers, pollinating while collecting nectar to make "this amazing substance" — honey.

The mint story is one Crowder shares with nearly 20 students gathered around a table for one of four sessions on beekeeping at the farms at Tesuque Pueblo.



Former Tesuque Gov. Rick Vigil starts each class with a native prayer and tells the students he hopes they’ll take what they learn at Tesuque Farms "to enhance your own community."

 

All are here to "keep" bees. Some want the honey. Others hope to cure allergies. Some are here because beekeeping is an extension of growing one’s own food, and because by keeping bees, they hope to perhaps counteract the loss of bees through colony-collapse syndrome. For most, including myself, it’s a combination of all of these.



Hays, who turned 70 last month and calls himself “the old drone,” started keeping bees at Hays Honey and Apple Farm about 20 years ago after a co-worker advised him honey and bee pollen could help him with his allergies. “I had allergies so bad I could hardly stand it,” Hays says.

 

Not only have his allergies gone away, but Hays says he cured himself of gout and of bursitis with "stinging therapy." Bee venom, he says, contains seven anti-inflammatory pectins and histamine. (The regimen for stinging therapy, he says, can be found in the classic apitherapy book, Health and the Honey Bee.)

Hays offers a free workshop on beekeeping at his farm every April, and as many as 100 attend. He expresses respect for Crowder’s teaching methods, because he says the most important thing to teach is how to behave around bees — to approach them calmly and gently. Crowder says if we move slowly, we’re invisible to the bees, they’re moving at such a fast pace.

"You learn beekeeping from the bees," he says. And if you are stung, don’t slap them. Scrape the bee sideways off your skin because the stinger keeps pulsing.



Crowder says with bees, the hive is the creature. Bees cannot live alone, and each bee has a function. Some bees are the respiratory tract; when the hive is too hot, workers will station themselves at key points and flap their wings to create a breeze. Some are the digestive system, passing the food they’ve collected to babies or the queen. A few thousand bees and one queen are considered a viable unit, and as many as 80,000 bees can inhabit one box or hive.

Learning the basics

In the classes at Tesuque, Crowder teaches students how to build a cradlelike box called the "top bar" hive, in which bars of wood atop the cradle form an anchor on which bees build their combs. He teaches them the importance of "breeding toward gentleness," as well as ways to manage the combs and, of course, harvest the honey.



Some highlights from Crowder’s classes:



Beekeepers should always leave the first 12 combs out of about 36 for the bees’ own food. They will need it over the winter, when they hunker down. "Bees don’t believe in sustained continuous growth," Crowder says.

Honey lasts a long time, especially in our dry climate. "It’s well preserved." In New Mexico natural honey with low moisture content tends to crystallize, or look creamy (not to be confused with creamed honey, which is honey that has been whipped to create a creamy texture).



Most honey found in stores appears golden and clear because generally it has been warmed and water added, so it is fluid enough to filter. After filtering, it is heated again to remove the water. But in doing so, much of honey’s therapeutic properties are removed as well.



Pollen can be harvested only in the spring. Much of the pollen in stores is "trapped" pollen; that is, a tool in the hive scrapes the pollen off the bees’ legs as they enter, and it drops to the hive floor. Comb pollen, however, is 80 percent more digestible. "The ancient Greeks fed comb pollen to their athletes."



A worker honeybee can increase the static charge in her body to better collect pollen. She can also carry more pollen by literally plastering it into her leg hairs with a bit of regurgitation.



When bees mate, the queen leaves the hive and meets up with cruising drones. She will mate with several. As each male finishes mating, he drops to the ground — dead. Once fertile, she has all the semen she needs for years of egg laying. The queen can lay 2,000 eggs a day.





Editor’s note: This is the second of two articles on raising bees in New Mexico. The first, on the risks honeybees face in the state and elsewhere, can be viewed here.