Melanie Kirby: Art, Science & Bees in Community (358)

358 - Melanie Kirby: Art, Science & Bees in Community

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

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[music]

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[00:01:51] Becky: Welcome, everybody, to this special episode of Beekeeping Today podcast. My name is Becky Masterman, and I've stolen the keys to the studio from co-host Jeff Ott. We've locked him out for just a little bit, and I've invited friend and professor at Michigan State University, Dr. Meghan Milbrath as a co host, and we are talking to friend Melanie Kirby, who is really going to wow everybody as far as her beekeeping experience and the projects that she's working on right now, as well as her appointment as an extension educator. Welcome to both of you. Do you feel a little rebellious here, sneaking into the studio? [laughs]

Melanie Kirby: Hi, everybody [crosstalk] Private Radio Forever!

Meghan Milbrath: Sorry Jeff.

Becky: Actually, Meghan, why don't you reintroduce yourself to the audience, and then we will move on and spend a lot more time talking with Melanie.

Meghan: Hello, everyone. As Becky said, I work at Michigan State University. I'm kind of half research, half extension, working with honeybees. Then I also teach in the large animal clinical sciences at the vet school, teaching honeybee medicine, and I keep bees in South Central Michigan.

Becky: You were most recently a part of our Building Your Beekeeping Business Series, and you contributed to a couple of episodes there.

Meghan: Yes, it's very fun.

Becky: Welcome back, Meghan. Melanie, could you please tell us all about-- You've got a half hour, just go for it. No, I'm kidding.

[laughter]

Becky: Please introduce yourself. Thank you.

Melanie: Sure. Thank you, Becky. Thank you, Meghan, for having me on Beekeeping Today. Very, very awesome to be here. My name is Melanie Kirby. I am a beekeeper and queen bee breeder based in the Southern Rocky Mountains in Northern New Mexico, pretty close to the Colorado border. I'm also an Extension Educator and Pollinator Specialist at the Institute of American Indian Arts, which is actually a contemporary art school in Santa Fe.

Becky: Oh, there's so much to talk about after that introduction. [laughs] Could you start, Melanie? I know you've been in bees for a long time. Could you just start? How did you get started in beekeeping?

Melanie: I like to describe the scenario as being rescued or found by bees in the jungles of South America. I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I knew nothing about bees or beekeeping prior. I just knew that I really wanted to be outside. I had been an outdoor educator, had worked as a lifeguard for many years, all throughout my college days. I was looking for some adventure. My mom had actually done Peace Corps right after it had first started by the Kennedy administration.

She had been stationed in the French Grenadines in a small island called St. Vincent. When she finished her service-- actually on her way back, she was trying to catch the boat to Barbados to catch her flight back to New Mexico, and she met my dad. That's my where my curly hair comes from.

Meghan: Oh, my gosh.

Becky: What a great story.

Melanie: I grew up pretty much just hearing her-- Whenever Peace Corps is mentioned, I just recall her saying it was one of the greatest experiences of her life. I remember thinking, "I want to have the greatest experience of my life." I knew from a pretty young age that I wanted to do Peace Corps when I finished college, so I did. I actually went off to school and studied marine biology, fisheries for a couple years at University of Miami and had way too much fun. [laughs] That was when I was a club kid, and I was in the rave scene and got into DJing.

Then I realized that I really wanted to value my education more, and so I actually came back home and went to a small liberal arts college called St. John's College. They have a sister campus in Annapolis, Maryland. They call it a Great Books program. I describe it as reading a lot of old dead people, a lot of philosophy. Then I did Peace Corps. Interestingly, two other people that I graduated with, so there were three of us who all enlisted in the Peace Corps when we graduated, we all had the same degree, but each one of us got very different projects.

I think one guy got sent to teach math in Nepal, and another woman got sent to teach English in Ghana, and I got sent to Paraguay to do beekeeping, so go figure. The bees found me, and the rest is history. I will say this, it was almost 30 years ago. I'll be celebrating my 29th year of beekeeping in 2026. That makes me feel old.

Becky: Experienced.

Melanie: Actually, it makes me feel like there's still so much to learn. I'm a student for life, so it's very humbling. I feel like there's lots for me to learn still.

Becky: Did the fact that you learned beekeeping in a different country, and then you came back to the US and you started beekeeping, I assume in a little bit different way, did that influence your decision to become a queen breeder?

Melanie: I think so. Down in South America, it was very rustic experience. We were using just machetes. We didn't have power tools, and so we were catching wild swarms. We were making our own equipment, which was really exciting. We'd have to fell a hollowed-out cocoa tree and then cut it open and pretty much slowly transfer over. It was predominantly top bar hives as well. There was a big interest from the locals to look modern.

They actually ran a lot of what would be more akin to Warre-style hives, square boxes, but just bars inside. We did some very rudimentary cleaning. We'd cut out swarm cells and transfer them, and do it in that fashion. I made a really close friend in Peace Corps, and she was another volunteer. She was actually a crop extensionist. She'd grown up in Hawaii. Her mom came to visit, and we hit it off. Her mom had a small flower farm at the time, Gardenia Flower Farm, which just smelled delightful to wake up to.

She invited us to go and help her on her farm when we finished our service. Of course, coming from New Mexico, which is high desert, I was like, "Job, Hawaii, beach, I'm there." I went out there, and it was while I was there that I ended up learning about Kona Queen and Big Island Queen, and Hawaiian Queen. I had no idea that that was a whole industry. I just had my rustic jungle beekeeping experience.

I ended up getting to connect with a beekeeper, actually, while standing in line at the DMV, he was wearing a shirt that had bees on it. My friend was like, "Tell him you're a beekeeper." I was quite embarrassed, but I did, and we became friends. Then they told me that their boss was always looking for people who had experience. At that time, it was Gus Rouse who owned Kona Queen.

I remember calling him up and telling him who I was. He needed somebody right away, but I had committed to my friend's mom to work through her growing season. He said, "Let me know when you're available, we'll see if I have a spot." Of course, once I was available, he did not have a spot. I was pretty devastated because by then I started to realize, oh wow, this is like the world's largest queen breeding operation. I really want to work there.

I actually ended up leaving the island for, I want to say almost a year, not quite a year. I got a job in Mexico, in the Yucatan, so I went there. I wasn't doing bees. I was actually a quality control translator for a bamboo furniture-making company [chuckles] of all things, but they actually had some bees on site, so I'd get to go with the beekeeper. They were very feisty bees. My first several years of beekeeping were with really feisty bees with scutellata, and I knew nothing different.

My friend ended up calling me and said, "Hey, I saw an ad in a little corner store up near South Point on the Big Island," she said, "and there's another bee farm that's looking for people." I called the number up, and it was Michael Krones, who owns Hawaiian Queen. He hired me. I got to go out, and I worked for him for a whole season. I credit him with teaching me how to graft. It was a small crew. There was about four of us, and yes, I learned a lot.

Interestingly, because it's an island and the islanders sometimes compete with each other, [laughs] I ran into my friend again, who I had met at the DMV. He told Gus that I was back on the island and working for the, quote/unquote, "competition," and Gus called me up and was like, "When you're finished there, you come work in here." I was like, "Oh, okay." I had very basic skillset at that time, but Michael did close shop for a few months out of the year, and so I did. I ended up transitioning over to Kona Queen and ended up working there for, gosh, about four years.

Becky: Wow.

Melanie: It just changed my whole outlook on beekeeping, but also career options. My thought had been that I wanted to move to San Francisco and be a DJ. [chuckles] Then now I often joke that the bees are my DJs now, but I started to see how this was a skill that would allow me to, one, learn so much because it's such a dynamic interface working with nature, but working with bees' just so fascinating.

I was smitten, and having the opportunity to work at a large commercial operation in a tropical climate, which means they get to work year-round. All of us who worked there got to work with people from all over the world who would come out there. There was a lot of beekeepers who, during their winter, would come to Hawaii to work. We had a lot of Canadians who would come down. There were also people from France, Scotland, Chile, New Zealand.

I got to work with folks from all over, and they were all predominantly male who does a lot of the field work. I was that oddball who was like, no, but I actually like being outside. There was only three women on staff at the time, and one was the office manager, Nancy Esco. She's now retired, but she's wonderful. I have such fond memories of her. Then another woman, Heidi Cariaga, who was a Hawaiian woman, and she worked there for many years. I believe she's now retired from there.

Her and I would graft every morning together, and of course, she would graft three to one of what I was doing. She was just so quick. You get a lot of practice grafting 6 days a week and 1,500 queen cells just month after month after month. It just gave me a lot of practice. After I would graft, then I'd get to go out into the field and help catch queens. Sometimes I'd stay back and make pollen patties, and I would really grumble because I'd be upset that I didn't get to go out to the field.

They realized that, if they wanted to keep me somewhat pleasant, that [laughs] I should be allowed to go out in the field. I got to go shake bees, too, on occasion, which is very heavy, hard work, but thank goodness the guys that I worked with were gentlemen and were nice enough to just be sport about letting me get to try all those different roles. You get a little bit of island fever after being there for so long. I got to go back to Paraguay as a beekeeping extensionist trainer for New Peace Corps volunteers. That was, I think, in 2003.

Just getting that opportunity to go and travel again, I realized that, when you live in a beautiful island such as Hawaii, which also is very expensive, that you don't necessarily get to fulfill a lot of those other aspirations just due to distance and cost. After I got to go back and be a trainer, which was great because I got to visit my old site, and by now I had all these skills that I wished I'd had when I had been a volunteer. It was just really amazing to be able to go back and be more relevant in that sense.

I decided after that that I would move back to the mainland. I actually went-- I wasn't sure. I was like, do I want to start my own bee thing, but I didn't have any business acumen. I never kept bees in my own home area, which is a desert. It's a high desert, but it's still a desert. I just still really felt like I didn't know enough. By now internet is in full swing, and I did a random search online and found a position for migratory beekeeper, named Gary Oreskovic, who is a Wisconsinite. He was migratory, would move his bees between Wisconsin and Florida, and I ended up joining his Florida crew.

The rest is again more history because I worked off and on for him for about three years. Actually, my plan was to go work for him, and then I had a job lined up in New Zealand.

Becky: Oh my gosh.

Melanie: I was going to go to New Zealand and to work for a queen producer. I met my farm partner, Mark, who's from Michigan, and yes, I chose Michigan over New Zealand. Go figure.

[laughter]

Melanie: That was pretty fun because he lived in the UP for, gosh, close to 30-some years. I had never really had that solid of a winter. In New Mexico, when you're at elevation, we get a good winter, but we still get a lot of similar gain. It can be cold out, but it's still sunny. Being up in the UP was a real experience for me, a very fond one too. We lived off-grid in a little dome. I think it was like 13-foot diameter. It's very small. It had a little loft, so we slept up on top. Then on the bottom was part kitchen, living space. Had a privy and everything, and it was-- We didn't kill each other. So, that was good.

[laughter]

Melanie: He had been doing his own hobby, sidelining. It was turning into sidelining operation. He was producing a lot of honey that he was selling to the Marquette Food Co-op. He had gotten to a point where he just had swarms hanging in trees, and he was like, "I need to go work for a professional. I don't know what's happening here." He went to go work for Gary.

Becky: Oh, wow.

Melanie: We met working actually in Florida. That's how we teamed up, and that was actually 20 years ago, because this past year we celebrated 20 years of our farm. He had superior honey farms for a number of years, and then once I convinced him to bring half the flock, so to speak, down to New Mexico, we learned together how to keep bees down here. Yes, we've had Zia Queenbees now for 20 years-

Becky: 20 years.

Melanie: -which just makes me feel really old. It actually just makes me feel tired when I think of like, "Oh man, what work." In a very endearing way, it's exciting to know that we've lasted this long. I consider a small-scale commercial. We do produce queens every year. Before we had kids, we produced a lot more queens.

[laughter]

Melanie: Now that we have kids-- because we're mainly a two-person op. At this point, Mark actually does a lot of the day-to-day, because I have this other job as well. He takes on apprentices, and we've had some interns over the years. My interest in apiculture, in particular, started to really expand. Part of it was starting off in a rustic situation and then getting to work for large-scale commercial enterprise, then getting to work for a migratory operator, and then we became migratory ourselves.

We used to move bees between Michigan and Florida, Florida, New Mexico, Michigan, New Mexico, and then New Mexico, California. It's been pretty much for at least 10 years, although the last 2 years, Mark's taken a break from that. It opened my eyes to just how interesting, not only genetics is, but also what we call epigenetics, and just how the environment can really shape how bees are responding. Then not only that, but how we respond as beekeepers too.

We are definitely being impressed upon by the environment. I just became really kind of, I want to say humbled by that because getting to also meet beekeepers in different places, hearing not only what their challenges were, but how they were so innovative and overcoming it, or what their interests were. It really started to make me feel that it was okay to be a nerd, [laughs] and that I could finally come out of the closet, like I say, as a closet academic.

I love both. I love applied research. I like stuff that's practical, that really makes sense in our living laboratory. I had been wanting to go back to school, but honestly when I'd finished Peace Corps, even my mom's a retired educator, and I remember her asking me every so often, "What about grad school? What about grad school?" I would say, "Well, I'm still learning a lot in the field, at some point."

I honestly thought maybe I would just put off a master's or doctorate for just a few years, but I ended up putting it off for 20 years because I was just learning so much in the field. I still am for sure. [laughs] I'm a student for life. I did reach a point, especially after I had kids and I started to-- I knew that my physical abilities to maintain 16-hour days out in the field was just not realistic anymore.

I like being of service, I would say this. It's one of my foundational values. Mark and I don't own any land, so we've stay inspired, but forced to figure out creatively how to access land and forage for the bees. That really propelled us into meeting different farmers and land stewards. They would provide space, and we would exchange for pollination, but also getting to hear what their issues were, so now not just what beekeepers are going through, but also now other land stewards and farmers and ranchers and gardeners.

I really started to think, wow, these people have so much knowledge of the land. They don't have the fancy three letters after their name, but they have a lot of experience. I wish that there was more communication between academia and the lab.

Becky: We see Meghan shaking her head, yes. [laughs]

Meghan: Yes, I was going to say that I'm nodding, not shaking my head. Absolutely, yes.

Becky: I said shaking? Yes.

[laughter]

Becky: Nodding, yes.

Melanie: Yes, most definitely. I'm sure Meghan gets it, you've got your own bees too, and you also do research and education and it becomes-- I think all beekeepers wear those multiple hats. They're trying to figure out what's happening with their hive. Those that have that inquisitive nature of wanting to understand the biology behind it, they either will start to read up on that stuff or try to figure out who can help them to understand it. Then some of us ourselves go back to school to learn it.

I happened to be at a conference, and I like to share this story because it starts off like heavy, but it becomes much more positive. It was an American honey producers meeting, and they actually happened to have it in Albuquerque. Dr. Steve Sheppard was there, and I'd been following his research for a while. I really liked it. I was super excited to meet him. You meet your bee research stars, and you're like, starstruck.

I went up to him and said, "Hey, I have this breeding program we've been selecting for 20 years for longevity." His first question was very much the true academic that he is. He said, "Well, where's the peer review? Where's the publications? Where's the article?" I said, "Well, I've got my notebooks."

Becky: Nice.

[laughter]

Melanie: He said, "Well, that's great and all, but that's a case study, and case studies in science are relevant." My jaw dropped because, on the one hand, it's like, is he saying my work is irrelevant? I wasn't actually offended. Actually, my job dropped because I had this like epiphany. I had this aha moment where I was like, "Oh, he's speaking as an academic, I'm speaking as a farmer. We need a translator. I want to learn how to be that translator."

I just happened to mention to him nonchalantly that I was thinking about going back to school finally after 20 years. Sure enough, a few months later, he surprised me. He called me up, and he said he had some funding for a grad student and that if I really wanted to do it that I should consider going to Washington State. Spoke to my family, and Mark said he would stay and take care of the bees on the farm. My mother and sister offered to come up with me to Pullman-

Becky: Wow.

Melanie: -to help watch the kids because now they were in elementary school. Yes, I went back in 2017. Since I had been out of school for so long, I was nervous to go straight into a PhD program. I really was like, "Oh, okay, I don't even know if I can handle first semester, nonetheless, like several years." I decided to start with a master's to just get back in the swing of things. Let me tell you, there's nothing like being what they call a non-traditional student, AKA being older, [laughs] and now knowing what you really want to do and what you're interested in.

I was done with my clubbing days and all of that stuff. I was really focused and took as many classes as I could. Got to learn a lot from the whole team at WSU and had great professors and a really awesome advisory committee. Yes, that was that. It took me a little bit longer to finish because COVID happened for one. My mom also got a head injury, and so I had to reassess things.

I did get a research fellowship to Spain through Fulbright-National Geographic, and so that got me traveling again and getting to meet beekeepers now across the pond, so to speak. [chuckles] Yes, I feel like in another life I would've been an anthropologist because I just love [laughs] learning about cultures, and different beekeeping cultures are super fascinating. Just, again, how innovative beekeepers are and how they learn from the landscape and also how different the bees are, just the ecotypes and the different ways in which that-- yes, it's fascinating.

Becky: Melanie, I think you're like living so many beekeepers' dream at this point with all of your experiences. Let's take a really quick break right now, and we will come right back and learn more about your beekeeping journey.

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Welcome back everybody. Melanie, your journey is absolutely unbelievable, and I really can't wait to learn more. I want to make sure that you share what your master's project was and then let's just keep going, because you have a beekeeping queen breeding business that I really can't wait to learn more about too.

Melanie: Yes, I ended up doing-- obviously, I was really fascinated with longevity and the breeding side of things, but that's definitely a bigger commitment like a PhD. Like I mentioned, I wasn't sure if I was quite ready for that. I offered to do a project that they had been wanting to do, and they had some funding to actually look at utilizing RFID or radio frequency identification, so these little microchip tags, for monitoring mating behavior or when the queens go out to fly to mate.

I had a lot of ups and downs. I will tell you that much. My project was tied into actually the Voiland School of Engineering at Washington State University. There was a group of undergraduate students who were in their final year. It was part of their senior design project. I went through, I think, about two teams over a course of a couple of seasons, who helped to create these devices. We learned a lot, that's for sure. I do not have an engineering background, so I learned a lot from these young professionals who were trying to help me troubleshoot.

They didn't necessarily know bees either, so we were trying to figure out where the sensor would go. The first season was a complete bust because we just had plug-in units. For some reason, it kept getting un unplugged. Even they had power failure on that end of campus, which hadn't happened in decades or something.

Becky: Devastating.

Melanie: The honest truth about my grad school experience was that it really gave me a profound new sentiment of admiration for scientists and researchers because it is so tedious and so many times it doesn't go your way, and you have to be able to pick up the pieces and try again. I really started to see like, wow, science is difficult. It's not for the faint of heart. Really that's one of my bigger takeaway message from that experience was just how hard the scientists and researchers work to try and figure things out. They want to be careful, and they want to have sound science.

That first year was really just me learning how to troubleshoot. The second season we were able to switch to solar-powered units, but that was also fun because the locations there on the Palouse, which is a lot of wheat growing, so forage is limited, but the initial spot I started them at was in this fruit tree orchard, and they had cages set up for all the starlings. I remember thinking-

Becky: Oh, no. No.

Melanie: -"There's a lot of birds here. They're setting up cages." My first two rounds that season, I think I got like 20% success return of queens because-

Becky: Oh my gosh.

Melanie: -they were just getting gobbled up by birds. Again, another opportunity to be humbled by nature.

Becky: That confirms beekeeper's worst nightmare when they see a bunch of birds-

Melanie: When you see a bunch of birds.

Becky: -in flight that--

Melanie: Yes. I even remember. Go ahead. Sorry.

Becky: Oh, sorry. It could be queens and forgers. There's no reason it would just be queens, so it could literally be gobbling up your honey harvest.

Melanie: Oh, yes. Right there, just darting about. I remember telling him, "I think it's the birds." I remember he said, "Well, how do you know it's the birds?" I just said, "I've been rearing queens a long time, and I don't know everything, but I do know that birds can be an issue." [laughs] I honestly think I was probably one of his most difficult students. Part of it was because I had this whole other experience before with my farm, and so I asked probably more questions than the average grad student would, but he was really patient with me, and I learned a lot.

It was, I want to say, a bittersweet experience just in terms of figuring out a feasible research design. How can we make this work? The units in the end that I had, I feel like I mostly walked away with learning how to field test equipment versus having solid data I could stand next to, but I learned so much. That was my goal, and I accomplished that goal.

Becky: Excellent.

Melanie: Then lockdown happened, that changed everything. I knew that I had the farm, and I wanted to go back to it. As small-scale producers, we dabble in a few different things to make it all work. We do some queen production. We do some pollination. Of course we do some honey production, but I was still just so interested in research. I was like, "I want to be able to do field research and with people."

I had done a couple projects in the past with communities of beekeepers, and now I felt that I had more understanding of the science and the scientific design, just that process. I actually had been looking for an extension position because, again, that thought of how can I be that translator? How can I help beekeepers? Then also, you meet researchers over time.

I met Meghan, gosh, years ago. You get to know these individuals as people, and you realize that it's not just a job. They could have an easier job. They're doing this because they love it. They've got questions and problems that they're trying to solve too. A lot of them, actually, they really want to want to be relevant with beekeepers to help beekeepers figure out what their biggest concerns are.

Over this whole time, coming out of the closet finally as academic, I got to meet all these different beekeepers and researchers. I started to recognize, "Wow, what if we had more of a collective space where we could just talk with each other?" That's led to some of these newer projects which Meghan's a part of. We have the Adaptive Breed Breeders Alliance which is a coast to coast network, got like 12 bee producers on there and queen breeders. We've got 12 researchers. Some wear multiple hats, like Meghan, who get to be on both sides of that.

Becky: I bet she does.

Melanie: Yes, she's awesome.

Becky: Is there a website for that?

Melanie: We do have a website. It's adaptivebeebreedersalliance.org. We also are on Instagram. I think it automatically posts on Facebook too, but sometimes I'm a little slow to get it posted. We got our first grant in 2022. It's a three-year grant from Western SARE, so Sustainable Agriculture Research Education. I know that there's one for each region. I know that there's one in North Central as well where you all are at.

That's been to help launch it, but we did run into this third year where we were really going to kick it up a notch and get a bunch of stuff going. The funds got frozen a little bit at the beginning of the year. Now they're unfrozen, and we've got an extension to finish some stuff. We're going to be putting together an anthology that includes profiles of each of the researchers and each of the producers. We've got also genomics we're doing.

There's a lot of these producers have bees that they've been selecting that they like to use, but just like the American melting pot, they have mutts. Not everybody knows what they have. Some of the funding will go to help us actually do some genomics analysis, so everybody can learn what kind of bees they have. We're also doing a big push to get everybody's bees into the tank, so to speak.

There's the National Germplasm program, which is run by USDA, but then they have an American honeybee germplasm repository program. It's these big tanks that are underground in Fort Collins, Colorado. They store everything there from heirloom, prize strains of Angus bulls and horses and turkeys and chicken, and now they also have a small tank for bees. It's really actually just the drone semen that gets cryopreserved.

We just now got a secondary grant, just signed off on the paperwork on that last week because, again, a few delays. We're going to be focusing now on getting more targeted training so that we have folks in each region of the country who become more nuanced to collection, because it's actually pretty tedious to collect drone semen, you can imagine, underneath the microscope. That's that project.

Becky: That's a big project. Now, could you talk a little bit more about your actual position? Is it a new extension educator position in apiculture at that institute, or was there somebody else who helped that?

Melanie: Interestingly, yes. What some people don't realize is there's several different forms of land-grant universities. A lot of our bigger state schools are land-grant schools, which basically means they were set up to be where agriculture education is housed, among all the other topics and programs of study. Those have a lot of land because they'd either have different animals that they were also part of their programming or veterinary schools, et cetera.

A lot of those state schools got set up in the late 1890s, I believe. Then about 1968 is when they gave the land grant status to what they call the HBCUs or the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Then it was in 1994, so almost 100 years later, they did that for tribal colleges. A lot of the tribal colleges, which I think there's about 35 across the nation, a lot of them are affiliated with whatever tribe they're located in, whatever region that is.

For instance, here in New Mexico, we have Navajo Tech, and that's focused on students from Navajo Nation. The school that I'm at in particular is actually-- it was Congressionally Chartered over 60 years ago, so it's been around a while. Started off as just a high school program, then went to an associate's degree program. Now they have, I think, about seven BFA programs, three MFA programs, and they're working on a master's program in cultural administration.

As I mentioned, it's an art school. Now with the land grant status, we do have an ag extension department. We are not a program of study, meaning people can't get a degree in agriculture with us, but we collaborate a lot with faculty for all sorts of things. We have an ethnobotanist on staff who does courses, and so we help to grow things for their class. We have food gardens. We have a 1,200 square-foot greenhouse. We have a teaching apiary now.

Becky: Nice.

Melanie: Yes, I think the garden got started maybe about 14 years ago or so, and it's just slowly grown. We have a small little orchard as well, but we really work to, I call it consilience, and it's not a word I came up with. Actually, E.O. Wilson, who's very interesting entomologists and zoologists had written a book called Consilience or Unity of Knowledge. Really, we bring together different knowledge systems.

We bring together what they call traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK, and we also pair it with Western regenerative agriculture science. We have a tractor. We do irrigation, but then we also have some teaching plots that are very much traditional and show ancestral forms of farming. We have like waffle gardens, spiral gardens. We do raised beds, which can help, especially in the desert environment where it's so dry.

A lot of our communities here in this particular region of New Mexico follow along what's called an acequia system, which, if you haven't heard of this, it's really fascinating. I think there's only like three other countries that still have this historical practice, like Pakistan and Spain. We have over a million miles of culturally maintained waterways, so traditionally, the native Americans, which we have 22 sovereign nations in our state.

We also have several that are non-federally recognized, including my own tribal community, which is from Southern New Mexico. It's called Tortugas Pueblo. We're cousins to two federally recognized tribes, but we are state recognized. Basically, they'd watch where the water came. We're in the Southern Rockies, so we do have mountains, got multiple peaks that are over 12,000 and 13,000 feet. We always hope for good snow pack.

Then, once that snow melts, it of course rushes down, and it merges into the Rio Grande or into the Rio Chama or other sort of tributaries. Then those all flow down to the valley, which is then of course, where a lot of people are farming. Interestingly, as the water comes down, you have a lot of these little older villages, where they would make these offshoots of what they call acequias. It's actually an Arabic word, [laughs] but yes, it's basically a waterway.

There's a whole cultural practice. People come out in the community every-- I believe it's usually in March. They'll have a ceremony. They'll clean up. Everybody works together to clean basically the ditch. That way they can make sure everybody gets water. They have somebody who they mayordomo, which means basically like a butler of the water, but they're the ones who make sure that everybody gets their allotment so that they can grow whatever it is they want to grow.

Water is really-- it's becoming a really contentious topic here in the arid southwest. We have some corporate farms that are buying up what they call water rights from smaller farms. We also have an aging population of folks who just can't farm anymore, and their children have all moved to the city, and so it's like, if you don't use it, you lose it. There's a lot of efforts to try and revive some of that, which it's great because my extension work puts me in connection with a lot of these people.

I work with everybody. I've got beekeepers that I work with who are indigenous, and a lot of them are using hives for supplementing entrepreneurial pursuits that they have. For instance, I've got one collaborator who's got her own cookie company. She grows her own Sonoran wheat for her cookies. It's a traditional cookie. It's called a biscochito. She wants to use honey instead of sugar. She's also growing sugarcane too.

Becky: Nice.

Melanie: I've got another collaborator who's from Taos Pueblo, who she is a wildcrafter, and she makes her own wellness line. She makes a yucca shampoo and a blue-corn face mask. She likes the wax for soaps and salves, et cetera. I feel like it's a wonderful position because, not only do I get to do agriculture science and include the bees, but it's an art school. I get to do arts, science and magic

Becky: Oh there you go [laughs]

Melanie: Yes. For me, because I really consider myself to be an interdisciplinarian. I'm getting ready actually this next month to go to the Entsoc or Entomological Society of America Conference.

Meghan: I'm going too.

Melanie: Are you going, Meghan?

Meghan: I'm excited to see you.

Melanie: Yes. Good. We'll meet up.

Becky: Where is it this year?

Meghan: Portland.

Becky: Where are you guys-- Where is it?

Melanie: It's in Portland. Yes.

Becky: Oh, Portland. Okay.

Melanie: I've worked with an alum, who actually worked for our program for three years. I used to refer to him as the accidental apprentice. He's kind of a beginning beekeeper, and he's definitely probably learned more about bees than he really ever wanted to, but he has a cinematography degree.

Becky: Oh, cool.

Melanie: We're going to be doing a workshop along with Dr. Jennifer Tsuruda, who's from University of Tennessee.

Becky: Oh, cool.

Melanie: Yes, it's on the 12th, so you should come. We made VR films called the Immersive Insectarium.Students filmed it and helped to produce it, and I get to take it to this event. Then, hopefully, we'll get to take it around and show people. I'm just thrilled because there's a lot of these skills that I actually don't have, but [laughs] I get to find people and work with people who do have them, and we get to collaborate. That really is, I think, what's most fulfilling for me is really getting to work in community. It's also the biggest lesson I've learned from the bees is how to work in community.

Becky: I love that so much. Okay, Melanie, I think we could probably talk to you for another few hours, but--

Melanie: You don't want to hear me for a few hours. [laughs]

Meghan: I kind of do. Yes.

Becky: I think Meghan and I, we're nodding, yes, or shaking our heads, yes. Although, I guess that's maybe not the right way to say it, but we do. For the sake of keeping the episode at the regular length, we're going to have to say goodbye, but, oh my gosh, this has been such a lovely, lovely journey. I just want to really quickly ask about who are you selling queens to? What location of beekeepers are you shipping? Or are people picking them up on the farm? What's--

Melanie: Yes, we do, of course, the onesie-twosie orders. A lot of those are local and regional. We also have collaborators in California that we share with as well. We pretty much will ship wherever. We're not producing as many as we used to. I'm looking more at just trying to do breeding stock because, yes, just the physicality. I was sharing during the break how it all sounds really nice and romantic, but I'm sparing everybody all the stings and the sweat in my eyes and the sore back moments.

It's that labor of love that the bees make us really appreciate life and all its gifts. Yes, I'm really looking to just focus more on breeding stock to be able to share with folks. There's some really cool research questions I'm trying to look at too. I'll just end it with this, but we did a project. We had Dr. Juliana Rangel come out and survey bees in our state. The southern portions of the state did show a presence of AHB, which makes sense because they came up through Mexico.

The Rockies are our saving grace. That's a tropical bee. When they hit the mountains, they went east and west. They went Arizona, Southern California, and then of course to the Southern states. They haven't made it up our mountains. Being at 8,300 foot, I'm, knock on wood, still in a very remote and isolated space. When Juliana came, Dr. Rangel was able to-- she did 65 samples across the state. She confirmed that, yes, up here in the north, we don't have AHB.

Becky: That's Africanized bees for everybody.

Melanie: Yes. Apis mellifera scutellata. Interestingly, we found-- there's a canyon site that I've been monitoring for probably about 15 to 18 years, but the strain from there, we still can't figure out what it is.

Becky: Oh, really?

Melanie: Yes, we're going to plan a safari float, a raft trip down to-- because it's a wild life turf.

Becky: That's exciting.

Melanie: I've got, actually, some elder tribal indigenous raft instructors who are going to take us down, and that way we can see if we can find them up in the caves. We've worked with Julia Mahood, too, who's from "Map My DCA". Using UAVs or mechanical drones with a pheromone lure hopefully we can find these drone congregation areas of these wild bees that have been persisting without intervention and learn more about them. I feel like there's so much research people can do even in their own backyard.

Becky: Oh, that's an exciting next chapter. Wow.

Melanie: Yes, and having great people around that they can work with. There's a lot that can be done in community.

Becky: What a great, great hour. Thank you so much, Melanie. Thank you.

Melanie: Thank you.

Becky: Meghan, thank you for being a part of this. This has been fantastic.

Meghan: Come visit.

Becky: Exactly. I want to do that. Then I also want you to come back again someday, too, because I think we have more to talk to you about.

Meghan: Yes.

Melanie: We'll wait another 10 years, right?

[laughter]

Becky: No. No, no, no.

Melanie: I'm joking.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode of Beekeeping Today. Before we go, be sure to follow us and leave us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or wherever you stream the show. Even better, write a quick review to help other beekeepers discover what you enjoy. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews tab on the top of any page.

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[00:52:40] [END OF AUDIO]