I Clicked YES For Stinging Insects. Now I’m A Beekeeper. Melanie Margarita Kirby
Melanie Margarita Kirby joined the Peace Corps. While filling out the application she checked YES in the box for “will work with stinging insects.” In this part 1 episode Melanie provides information on honey bees and the history of the species. She also shares her own journey in Paraguay to becoming a conscientious and sustainable beekeeper.
Transcript
Conscientious beekeeping, sustainable beekeeping.
Catherine:These are important words for guest Melanie Margarita Kirby member of Tortugas Pueblo in New Mexico.
Catherine:Melanie has been all over the world, studying wildlife, especially honey bees.
Catherine:Her studies landed her with Washington state university, where she is
Catherine:finishing her studies in entomology.
Catherine:Continuing her studies in sustainable beekeeping and honey bee research
Catherine:she was awarded a Fulbright National Geographic scholarship where her research took her to Spain.
Catherine:But unfortunately COVID changed her research trajectory and she had to return to the states.
Catherine:Melanie is committed to having a hand in maintaining the world's honey bee population
Catherine:through her research and conscientious queen bee
Catherine:rearing.
Catherine:Melanie Margarita Kirby it is so good to have you on the show.
Catherine:Welcome.
Melanie Kirby:Thank you so nice to be here.
Melanie Kirby:It's so wonderful to
Catherine:meet you and you are in New Mexico first of all, if you could just tell us where your Pueblo
Melanie Kirby:is
Catherine:for the listeners.
Melanie Kirby:Sure.
Melanie Kirby:So my pueblo is actually located in Southern New Mexico, very close to the Texas Mexico border.
Melanie Kirby:And we are cousins to Isleta del Sur and Taos pueblos.
Melanie Kirby:So as history has it a lot of the pueblos, especially in the Northern end of the, of
Melanie Kirby:the region would migrate down, uh, for winter because it's very cold up in the Rocky mountains.
Melanie Kirby:And so a lot of the older folks and some of the infirm and some of the youth would
Melanie Kirby:would travel down and made a settlement in Southern New Mexico area and ended up staying.
Melanie Kirby:And so that's, that's my pueblo., we are not federally recognized, which has gone back
Melanie Kirby:and forth between tribal politics for some time, but we are still very much active.
Melanie Kirby:We were recognized by the state and we do practice our feast daysand our cultural traditions.
Catherine:So what do you mean by not federally recognized?
Catherine:Does that mean you don't receive funding from the
Melanie Kirby:federal government?
Melanie Kirby:Exactly.
Melanie Kirby:So I don't have, what some federal federally recognized tribes have are what they call a certificate of,
Melanie Kirby:of Indian birth, a CIB, which then entitles them to Indian health services and other programs.
Melanie Kirby:Federal federally funded programs.
Melanie Kirby:And since my particular tribe is not federally recognized, we don't have access to that.
Melanie Kirby:Some of that has to deal with blood, quantum and others it's just a political nature.
Melanie Kirby:Or I want to say bureaucratic probably more better put and, and it's unfortunate to a
Melanie Kirby:certain degree because, the fact that there are many tribes, over 500 plus tribes across
Melanie Kirby:what we call Turtle Island or north America.
Melanie Kirby:Those are just the ones that are recognized, but there are many more than that, that,
Melanie Kirby:that still exists that still practice their traditions, but they're not federally recognized.
Melanie Kirby:So I'm, I'm one of those tribes that is not federally recognized, but we'll see if that changes.
Catherine:Wow, thank you for that information.
Catherine:I appreciate it.
Catherine:Well now we're here to talk about
Catherine:Pretty much your lifelong study of wildlife because you were at first in Marine biology
Catherine:and then you moved and discovered honey bees.
Catherine:Let's first start with your absolute love for wildlife and this dream that you had to study wildlife.
Melanie Kirby:Yeah.
Melanie Kirby:So, growing up in the land of enchantment, which is our state motto here we have such stark and drastic
Melanie Kirby:Landscapes, and this, this area is known for not only the tri cultural traditions between the indigenous
Melanie Kirby:peoples, the Spanish that came in and then additional Europeans, but it's also where the desert and
Melanie Kirby:the Plains and the Rocky mountains come together.
Melanie Kirby:So we have a very, what you call crenellated landscape, which means it's, it's, very interesting
Melanie Kirby:because we have everything from desert to Tundra and you can drive through most of it
Melanie Kirby:within, a day's drive or even just a few hours.
Melanie Kirby:So having grown up in Southern New Mexico which is very much desert it's considered
Melanie Kirby:lower elevation as, as compared to the higher elevation Northern end of our state.
Melanie Kirby:But Las Cruces sits at about, I think, 3,500 foot elevation.
Melanie Kirby:So it would still, pretty high above sea level.
Melanie Kirby:So it's high desert.
Melanie Kirby:And I just really liked that the serenity that the desert landscape
Melanie Kirby:provides, I used to see lots of turtles.
Melanie Kirby:I really liked turtles.
Melanie Kirby:So we'd see lots of little desert turtles around and lizards, horny toads.
Melanie Kirby:And I really just was quite fascinated with all the little creatures that had adapted
Melanie Kirby:to living in such such a stark environment.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:We tend to think that the desert is dead, but it's actually very much alive.
Melanie Kirby:Animals are very smart and the plants are extremely intelligent because they've
Melanie Kirby:adapted to this particular landscape.
Melanie Kirby:I knew that when I went to college that I wanted to do something in the sciences.
Melanie Kirby:My, my heritage is, as a mestiza individual, meaning I'm mixed.
Melanie Kirby:So I've got not only my indigenous heritage.
Melanie Kirby:I've also got some Hispanic heritage, but in addition to that, as my last name suggests is a Scottish Irish.
Melanie Kirby:And my father is actually from the French Grenadines in the Caribbean.
Melanie Kirby:I've always had this fascination between not only the desert, but then also
Melanie Kirby:The ocean, and that craving for, yes.
Melanie Kirby:I feel that too.
Melanie Kirby:water.
Melanie Kirby:Right..
Melanie Kirby:So, when I graduated from high school, I had gotten a scholarship to go to university of Miami in Florida.
Melanie Kirby:And of course I was just ecstatic to be going to the beach.
Melanie Kirby:And so I chose Marine biology fisheries with, a, with a minor in ceramics because I really
Melanie Kirby:that's my, my other first love is ceramics.
Melanie Kirby:I really like working with clay and with pottery.
Melanie Kirby:So I embarked on that journey and it was extremely fun to be in a beach town.
Melanie Kirby:But the school itself was the size of my hometown.
Melanie Kirby:And so my first couple of years there, I started to really kind of get lost in that shuffle and
Melanie Kirby:I Had also really gotten into this was sort of the Dawn of EDM or electronic dance music.
Melanie Kirby:So I had started to get into raving and deejaying and that sort of thing.
Melanie Kirby:My classes sort of fell to the wayside, but I would still show up and take the tests and I was getting Bs.
Melanie Kirby:But having come from, a single parent household, my mother was a public school teacher for 34 years
Melanie Kirby:Rosemary, Kirby,Rosamaria kirby.
Melanie Kirby:She really valued education.
Melanie Kirby:And I just always remembered, it's like these little voices you hear, value your education.
Melanie Kirby:And one of the things that she told me early on when I was young, that I still remember today was just that
Melanie Kirby:education will set you free, gives you more options.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:And so I had this realization after hurricane Andrew, which was in the early nineties, because that was
Melanie Kirby:my first time being in sort of a cataclysmic event.
Melanie Kirby:Just the search for water, for fuel for, basic necessities was, it was the first time in my life
Melanie Kirby:that I realized that, wow, we are not above nature, nature really can throw us some curve balls.
Melanie Kirby:And I just started to reevaluate things and I realized that, I, I did want to value my education
Melanie Kirby:more because even though I was passing and getting Bs, I wasn't really learning the content.
Melanie Kirby:And I just felt that, that wasn't in tune with my own personal philosophy and my own
Melanie Kirby:upbringing, which is to, to be grateful for what you have and to show reverence for that.
Melanie Kirby:And to also pay it back to the community.
Melanie Kirby:So I decided to return to New Mexico after a couple of years and graduated with my undergraduate degree.
Melanie Kirby:And I'd like to tell people that that degree was in philosophy, which is awesome to, to think about great
Melanie Kirby:conversations, but doesn't necessarily pay the bills.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:So I knew that I would have to do some some additional training or education.
Melanie Kirby:And my mother had actually been enlisted in the United States peace Corps when it had originally started.
Melanie Kirby:I recall, her every once in a while saying that peace Corps was the greatest experience she had ever had.
Melanie Kirby:I wanted to enlist in the peace Corps and, to be of service to the world at large and
Melanie Kirby:got stationed in Paraguay in south America.
Melanie Kirby:My assignment was beekeeping and I knew nothing about it beforehand, but that's what
Melanie Kirby:brought me to bees was, it was by assignment.
Catherine:That is such an incredible journey so how long you were in the
Catherine:peace Corps for what you served your two
Melanie Kirby:years?
Melanie Kirby:Yes, it's a two year, three month commitment.
Melanie Kirby:, I was initially stationed in a little town called Aregua which was our training community.
Melanie Kirby:I was in the AG sector.
Melanie Kirby:And then also within that AG sector, they had crop extensionist and beekeeping extensionist.
Melanie Kirby:And so I was in the beekeeping extensionist program and there were five of us who were, I guess, brave
Melanie Kirby:enough to check the little box that said we didn't mind working with stinging insects, which is really funny
Melanie Kirby:because I remember that question on the application and in my mind, I remember thinking, well, I just
Melanie Kirby:want to appear as flexible as possible, so sure.
Melanie Kirby:I didn't even think twice about it.
Melanie Kirby:And then, come to find out, I guess a lot of people think twice about it before they mark that box.
Melanie Kirby:That's how I ended up getting that, that assignment.
Melanie Kirby:So after my training, there was predominantly inexperiential learning techniques because they knew
Melanie Kirby:we were going to be in communities where we were going to have to be serving as not only cultural
Melanie Kirby:ambassadors, but also technical ambassadors to communities that had requested technical assistance.
Melanie Kirby:And so we had language training because in Paraguay, in particular, they do speak Spanish or what they
Melanie Kirby:call Castilian, but it's not, it's not true Castilian.
Melanie Kirby:They also speak an indigenous language called Guarani.
Melanie Kirby:And so, I had some training in Guarani and then cultural traditions, because Paraguay,
Melanie Kirby:like Bolivia they're the only two countries within south America that are landlocked.
Melanie Kirby:So their access to, uh, progressive modern situations is, is pretty behind the times.
Melanie Kirby:It takes a while for, for new things to, to reach them.
Melanie Kirby:So it really was like stepping back in time, all the women worked from home,
Melanie Kirby:very few women worked out of the home.
Melanie Kirby:They were all what you call amas de las casas, , Housewives.
Melanie Kirby:And the men worked in the fields.
Melanie Kirby:And so my actual community where I was stationed after training was called Calle Mil and the particular zone
Melanie Kirby:I was in was actually called Colonia Independencia.
Melanie Kirby:And a lot of ex I should say, ex Nazis moved to that area after WWII to hide out.
Melanie Kirby:It was a little bit of a wine growing region.
Melanie Kirby:Unfortunately, there was a lot of deforestation for sugar cane production.
Melanie Kirby:So that's how this community had had, uh, asked for a beekeeping technician actually,
Melanie Kirby:after they had had several agroforestry technicians there that were with the peace Corps.
Melanie Kirby:And so our efforts were to try and help them diversify their farming efforts.
Melanie Kirby:Not so much to steer completely away from sugar cane, but to diversify it such that then, deforestation
Melanie Kirby:wouldn't occur at such a rapid rate and to help them generate a new income, uh, revenue or income stream.
Melanie Kirby:So because they're, uh, Culturally, they're still very I want to say rather subdued or quiet
Melanie Kirby:because they had lived under a dictatorship for so long, even though by the time I was there,
Melanie Kirby:they were already 30 years into democracy
Melanie Kirby:they were still very nervous to speak their minds and use their voice.
Melanie Kirby:So a lot of them kind of went along with, the norm, nobody really ever stuck out.
Melanie Kirby:When you go to the capital city, though, it was a whole other story.
Melanie Kirby:People would be on skateboards with colored hair.
Melanie Kirby:It seems like any other sort of metropolis, but I was five hours from the capital
Melanie Kirby:city at least a five hour, uh, Bus ride.
Melanie Kirby:There's not a lot of infrastructure.
Melanie Kirby:Once you get out of the capital city, it turns into, dirt roads and my community in
Melanie Kirby:particular, we didn't even have bus service.
Melanie Kirby:So I would get dropped off on the side of the road and then have to hike in five kilometers.
Melanie Kirby:Once you got out of that Capitol city, everything became very, very rural very quickly.
Melanie Kirby:I inherited a little house or bought it off of the previous volunteer.
Melanie Kirby:And a dog, I inherited a dog named joy joy, and we didn't have running water, so I would have
Melanie Kirby:to go, a couple doors down to the school, which had a well to get my drinking water.
Melanie Kirby:And I did have one light bulb and one outlet.
Melanie Kirby:So I did have electricity, but we didn't have bus service in that community.
Catherine:Wow.
Catherine:That is just so interesting and the experience that you had was my gosh, quadruple fold, as you learn,
Catherine:not just about the honey bees, but you learned, the culture, the people, the past, the history, the, the
Catherine:problems, the issues, the sustainability, or not.
Melanie Kirby:Yeah.
Melanie Kirby:They'd have a lot of, sort of enterprises move in.
Melanie Kirby:The cash crop at the time, uh, that was being promoted in general across the country was what they called
Melanie Kirby:ka'a he 'ê which means sweet herbs, which is Stevia.
Melanie Kirby:And so at the time though, I hadn't even, have been heard about here in the states, but
Melanie Kirby:Paraguay was one of those initial countries that started growing it for exportation.
Melanie Kirby:Now we hear Stevia all the time.
Melanie Kirby:You can go to any place, you can find it in a grocery store, and so it's interesting
Melanie Kirby:how a lot of these countries that do have, Paraguay itself as a sub tropical country
Melanie Kirby:so they have, a lot of growth, they have a lot of moisture.
Melanie Kirby:And so it's a good place to grow things.
Melanie Kirby:When I left the U S to go enlist in the peace Corps, I was also in my early twenties, but I
Melanie Kirby:was kind of thinking like, oh, the U S w we've got things, but we, We have a lot to learn.
Melanie Kirby:We're we're really not that great.
Melanie Kirby:And then I went to this country where I saw where their, basic infrastructure was lacking.
Melanie Kirby:Women weren't really allowed nor expected to speak their minds.
Melanie Kirby:And it was a real wake up call for me because I realized then just how lucky I was to have been born
Melanie Kirby:and raised in a country where I can exercise my rights.
Melanie Kirby:And so I came back a very much big, bigger Patriot than I had been prior to going at least feeling
Melanie Kirby:more grateful for the opportunities that I had had, but also recognizing that, our influence,
Melanie Kirby:our quote unquote,US American influence in other countries is pretty It's pretty deep, because
Melanie Kirby:in the capital city, they, a McDonald's had showed up, there were Coca-Cola signs everywhere.
Melanie Kirby:They'd gotten a movie theater, things like that.
Melanie Kirby:And on the one hand, while it was disturbing to see that sort of influence taking hold, to
Melanie Kirby:those companies, they're probably thinking, well, we're expanding, we're globalizing.
Melanie Kirby:This is great.
Melanie Kirby:But on the other hand, they were changing that landscape, that, that local landscape and from the
Melanie Kirby:mom and pop restaurants and stuff like that, however, those companies going in were providing a lot of jobs.
Melanie Kirby:And so now you have the opportunity, the youth who had more job opportunities, they were able to earn money.
Melanie Kirby:They could then go to school, they could go to technical college, they could go to university.
Melanie Kirby:I got to see both sides of the coin and it really gave me a perspective that's kind of right in the middle.
Melanie Kirby:I feel that there's, especially in this quest for sustainability, technology, if we just think
Melanie Kirby:of technology and we think of the most, sort of intense version of it, it may seem so far
Melanie Kirby:removed from us and seemed really inappropriate.
Melanie Kirby:But if we, if we scale it back and really match it more with what I liked to really
Melanie Kirby:promote with just biomimicry which is utilizing nature's natural processes and forms to better
Melanie Kirby:support, life and regenerative aspects of life, then I think we can see technology, , in
Melanie Kirby:such a way that we can use it responsibly.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:So, the peace Corps gave me this perspective that.
Melanie Kirby:You can't necessarily keep the world one way or the other that it's constantly influx and
Melanie Kirby:our interactions, especially societaly will be changing over time, but how can we reconcile
Melanie Kirby:our differences and how can we find a common ground or a reconciliation, a compromise that is
Melanie Kirby:beneficial for everybody, not just the corporations and not just the politicians and, not just
Melanie Kirby:The people or what have you, that it's something that can work for everybody and includes
Melanie Kirby:biodiversity, which includes animals and wildlife, kind of getting back to that topic.
Melanie Kirby:, while I was there, I got to see some great things got to see a lot of snakes, some really
Melanie Kirby:cool spiders beautiful birds, monkeys and,
Melanie Kirby:I was able to travel to neighboring countries on occasion.
Melanie Kirby:Got to go to the Pantanal in Brazil, which is the world's largest wetlands.
Melanie Kirby:And that's just fantastic.
Melanie Kirby:I got to fish for Paranas and then cook them for dinner, which was pretty yummy.
Melanie Kirby:And yeah, I got to see big waterfalls in Argentina and of course the beaches and go through Uruguay
Melanie Kirby:i, and so I, I really enjoyed that time, especially in my early twenties as I was coming of age.
Melanie Kirby:It really expanded my worldview, above and beyond, my own education or book smarts.
Melanie Kirby:I feel like I started to gain, world intellect at that point.
Melanie Kirby:And I decided after
Melanie Kirby:doing beekeeping there because I ended up working with a lot of the women because , in
Melanie Kirby:that particular culture, it was inappropriate for me to just work alone with a man, right.
Melanie Kirby:Any time I'd have to go either visit a farmer
Melanie Kirby:either the wife came or a child came, you always had a chaperone, which was fine.
Melanie Kirby:I didn't mind it, but it was just that type of culture was still very shy in those
Melanie Kirby:regards or very conservative in those regards.
Melanie Kirby:And so I ended up doing beekeeping a lot with the women.
Melanie Kirby:And it made perfect sense because, the men are out in the fields doing the farming.
Melanie Kirby:And the women were the ones taking care of the pigs, the chickens, the kids, and now the bees.
Melanie Kirby:And it was just really awesome because, we, we had to build everything from scratch.
Melanie Kirby:They didn't have power tools, nonetheless credit cards to buy things, so.
Melanie Kirby:We made our own beehive boxes.
Melanie Kirby:We would do what's called tras siego, which is actual, uh, finding a wild
Melanie Kirby:swarm and, and relocating it into a box.
Melanie Kirby:And these women, it was great.
Melanie Kirby:They would, start with one hive, maybe get up to two or three and harvest the honey.
Melanie Kirby:We, we were able to start a, uh, an additional women's comité, a women's group,
Melanie Kirby:and do sewing projects and home gardens.
Melanie Kirby:And we started a little farmer's market in the nearby town.
Melanie Kirby:And with the money that these women earned, they were then able to buy their children
Melanie Kirby:shoes notebooks, pens, and pay for school because they didn't have public school.
Melanie Kirby:Elementary was still, for a fee.
Melanie Kirby:And so a lot of these kids would end up going, but just for a few years, and then start working in the field.
Melanie Kirby:So now that their mothers were able to generate a little bit of income, that was the first thing the
Melanie Kirby:mothers wanted to do was to keep their child in school.
Melanie Kirby:So now they could pay for that and buy the supplies that the children needed to attend school.
Melanie Kirby:And that was that was really impactful for me, because again, as I mentioned, coming from a country where we
Melanie Kirby:have a lot of these things provided, but not realizing that's a gift that doesn't happen everywhere.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:And of course, schools, aren't all the same state side.
Melanie Kirby:Some have more funding and some don't than others and things aren't always fair.
Melanie Kirby:But the fact that we at least have something I think is is pretty significant.
Melanie Kirby:And yeah, so I ended up doing bees with the women there.
Melanie Kirby:I also did a stingless bee project with the kids.
Melanie Kirby:What's called Melipona culture, which are stingless bees.
Melanie Kirby:And so they're little subtropical bees that instead of hanging their comb vertically, they actually stack
Melanie Kirby:it like little pancakes and they make these little wax, I want to call them like thimbles or gourds
Melanie Kirby:that you could pop off and, and drink the honey.
Melanie Kirby:The honey is very I want to say almost sour kind of fermented, but the honey from the from what they called
Melanie Kirby:(inaudible) from these little stingless bees was was highly prized and, and considered extremely medicinal.
Melanie Kirby:And so they could sell it for a much higher price than even, (inaudible) or honey bee, honey.
Melanie Kirby:But just for a little historical context, honey bees in the Americas, they're
Melanie Kirby:considered an introduced species, right?
Melanie Kirby:So, as settlers came and as colonizers came, they brought honey bees and within
Melanie Kirby:south America itself, the, in the 1950s, there was a gentleman by the name of Dr.
Melanie Kirby:Kerr.
Melanie Kirby:He's a Brazilian scientist.
Melanie Kirby:I know that a geneticist and he wanted to sort of breed a better bee because the European
Melanie Kirby:bees that had been brought over, they did.
Melanie Kirby:Okay.
Melanie Kirby:But they weren't overly prolific.
Melanie Kirby:And he thought, well, if he could bring some from Africa where he had done some research and he saw
Melanie Kirby:how productive they were, he thought, well, maybe I can make a, sort of a, a cross between the two
Melanie Kirby:and, and we'll have really productive bees here.
Melanie Kirby:Well, the research hives he had, the story goes, either somebody removed the reduced entrance or, took it off.
Melanie Kirby:These bees escaped.
Melanie Kirby:And so then they became known as Africanized or killer bees, and that was in the fifties.
Melanie Kirby:So then it took until the eighties for them to reach the Southwest of the U S and now
Melanie Kirby:you'll find them in varying states, along the Southeast and south Southwest of the U S.
Melanie Kirby:In New Mexico
Melanie Kirby:we're, we're lucky in that we have the Rocky mountains coming down, right.
Melanie Kirby:So, as a subtropical bee, these bees kind of hit those mountains and then they go
Melanie Kirby:east and west, they can't really go north.
Melanie Kirby:So in particular, I have my farm and how I ended up in Northern New Mexico
Melanie Kirby:and Taos was partially related to that.
Melanie Kirby:I'm mentioning that because, we tend to think of honey bees as being an introduced
Melanie Kirby:species or, or an exotic species.
Melanie Kirby:And over time, because they're a generalist pollinator, they really have been exploited.
Melanie Kirby:As a species.
Melanie Kirby:They've become exploited, especially with the, the rise of industrialized agriculture.
Melanie Kirby:And and that's really unfortunate because we've put so much sort of emphasis on this
Melanie Kirby:one creature that they really have become the backbone of American agriculture.
Melanie Kirby:And so, they say, one out of every three bites you take is dependent on honey bees pollination.
Melanie Kirby:I actually think it's a little bit more than that because even when you look at say milk, for
Melanie Kirby:instance, you wouldn't think, well, bees make milk.
Melanie Kirby:No, they don't, but they do pollinate the alfalfa, which feeds the cows, which then make the milk.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:So what's kind of, I want to say my, my newer mission is to, it really sort of set the record
Melanie Kirby:straight on that sort of scenario because there have been fossils found in the American
Melanie Kirby:Southwest in Nevada in particular of ,Apis Mellifera Ne Arctica which is actually a honey bee
Melanie Kirby:and that existed, close to 14 million years ago.
Melanie Kirby:So like horses, they were actually here on this continent.
Melanie Kirby:But then an ice age occurred a cataclysmic event and we didn't see them.
Melanie Kirby:So I like to think of bees as well as horses, honey bees, and horses as being a re-introduced species.
Melanie Kirby:But they were here before, or cousins to them were here before on this continent.
Melanie Kirby:And so my approach to beekeeping, especially as one who has her, I have my own small
Melanie Kirby:farm now is really approaching it from this perspective of re-introductions or in a sense
Melanie Kirby:that it's I'm not trying to maximize, I'm not trying to get as much honey as possible.
Melanie Kirby:I'm not trying to have as many bees as possible.
Melanie Kirby:In fact, I'm a pretty small operator in comparison to what we do have here in the states, I have
Melanie Kirby:anywhere between 200 to 300 hives, depending on the year and the season, and there are operators
Melanie Kirby:who have 10,000, even 80,000 colonies of beehives.
Melanie Kirby:So I'm very small potatoes in comparison, but it is a large part of my livelihood.
Melanie Kirby:And I see it as, my contribution to supporting not only local pollination
Melanie Kirby:needs, but to supporting biodiversity.
Melanie Kirby:So within my own beekeeping, I am very mindful of the other 4,000 different kinds of
Melanie Kirby:solitary bees that we have on this continent.
Melanie Kirby:So I try not to oversaturate any area because that's how the exploitation, is, is pronounced
Melanie Kirby:and is furthered, is if we get too many hives in one area and it, then out-competes all these
Melanie Kirby:other species that also need pollen and nectar.
Melanie Kirby:And some of those other pollinator species are what we call specialists, right?
Melanie Kirby:So if honey bees are generalists, meaning that they, they eat a variety of things,
Melanie Kirby:some of the other pollinators that are specialists only rely on one particular flower.
Melanie Kirby:And so if that flower is already pollinated and the Nectar's already sucked up,
Melanie Kirby:then they don't get the food they need.
Melanie Kirby:And so that really impacts that, that broader web of biodiversity.
Melanie Kirby:So I try to be really mindful about it.
Melanie Kirby:And I also consider, my approach to it too, and mentioning the biomimicry factor is that nature
Melanie Kirby:has figured out Mother Nature and Father Time have figured out, how to develop these processes, what
Melanie Kirby:we call these ecological services that have kept so many different organisms and landscapes alive.
Melanie Kirby:And so for us to think, we can just come in there and change it and do what we want and we're in
Melanie Kirby:charge is pretty arrogant, but there's a lot we can learn from just natural processes and how can
Melanie Kirby:we mimic that or replicate it in such a way that it's being managed by us as humans as, mankind,
Melanie Kirby:but it's more in tune with just the natural laws.
Melanie Kirby:So I see that with my beekeeping in my Brea breeding in particular, I consider myself to be a seed
Melanie Kirby:saver where the bees themselves are the seeds.
Melanie Kirby:Not all bees are the same.
Melanie Kirby:Within the honey bees species, there's actually close to 30 subspecies of honey bees.
Melanie Kirby:And so one of the cool things, as I mentioned about, the kind of bees that they had in Paraguay,
Melanie Kirby:but what took me on my recent storytelling fellowship through Fulbright national geographic
Melanie Kirby:to Spain, was looking at various what we call eco types or sub species of honey bees.
Melanie Kirby:And so in Spain, in particular, they have their own endemic strain of honey bees.
Melanie Kirby:It's called Apis mellifera iberiensis.
Melanie Kirby:There's Apis mellifera sahariensis, there's Apis mellifera ligustica
Melanie Kirby:which we also considered to be what we call Italian bees Apis Mellifera caucastica, which
Melanie Kirby:is I'm a Caucasian bee, and that's actually from the caucus mountains in Eastern Europe.
Melanie Kirby:And they're actually a very dark bee.
Melanie Kirby:So there's over, close to 30 kinds of these subspecies or eco types and they're all
Melanie Kirby:related, so they can intermate with each other.
Melanie Kirby:And it's just, to put it in In terms of, it might be easier to understand.
Melanie Kirby:It's just like humans, right?
Melanie Kirby:We're all human, but we have different races of humans.
Melanie Kirby:But as humans settled in different parts of the world, they became really adapted and
Melanie Kirby:attuned to those particular environments.
Melanie Kirby:And so the same goes for these different honey bee strains.
Melanie Kirby:And so I, I was, working for the beekeepers for a period of eight years before I finally got the courage
Melanie Kirby:to start my own small farm with a farm partner.
Melanie Kirby:And he's, he's actually from upper Michigan.
Melanie Kirby:And so he needed bees that could really do well in the cold.
Melanie Kirby:Right?
Melanie Kirby:Actually after peace Corps, I had gone to work in Hawaii for about five years where
Melanie Kirby:I started learning about queen rearing.
Melanie Kirby:And that's when I really got to see, wow, beekeeping is a as a skill or what I like to call an artistic
Melanie Kirby:science or scientific art can take you around the world, but it's also very distinct as can be
Melanie Kirby:site-specific depending on what kind of bee is there and depending on what kind of landscape, whether
Melanie Kirby:you're in a tropical climate or a desert climate, or a mountain climate, it really can can be quite distinct.
Melanie Kirby:And that just became quite fascinating for me because I, I then wanted to see all these different kinds of
Melanie Kirby:bees and in their own elements and how, how they work.
Melanie Kirby:Absolutely.
Melanie Kirby:Yeah.
Melanie Kirby:And really kind of pull it together as to, okay, well, here I am, in this particular part of the US where
Melanie Kirby:we have the deserts, we have the plains, we have the mountains; what kind of bee works good for us here.
Melanie Kirby:So I try and find those bees as a, as sort of a seed saver, finding these different seeds or these different
Melanie Kirby:bees that do well in our particular fluctuating climate and then try to respectfully reproduce them
Melanie Kirby:following the natural calendar, their own biological cycles, and then share those with other beekeepers.
Melanie Kirby:It was kind of an impromptu thing.
Melanie Kirby:I don't know if I really formalized it; these observations kind of
Melanie Kirby:built on each other over the years.
Melanie Kirby:I've had plenty of mentors and I still have, new mentors that I'm always tapping into.
Melanie Kirby:And one of them in particular had told me, anybody can have bees, but in
Melanie Kirby:order to breed them, it takes a career.
Melanie Kirby:It's taken years and years and in the states in particular, because we don't have these established
Melanie Kirby:eco types such as they do in Africa and Europe and the middle east and Asia bees were reintroduced here.
Melanie Kirby:The bees, started to adapt and migrate and really then become mixed.
Melanie Kirby:So we don't have any real pure strain or pure eco types here in the states.
Melanie Kirby:And as industrialized agriculture really took hold and expanded The same thing that's happened
Melanie Kirby:with our food crops has happened with our livestock, which bees are a form of livestock.
Melanie Kirby:And when I say livestock, I don't mean like, put a tag in it and give it a number
Melanie Kirby:it's more that it's alive and it has value.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:And so, what we see is that, yeah, when you go into the store, you see maybe what,
Melanie Kirby:three, four different kinds of potatoes, but there's actually over 200 varieties worldwide.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:And so, the same with our bees.
Melanie Kirby:We started to see just a few kinds that were really reproduced over and over again.
Melanie Kirby:And, a handful of larger producers really kind of running that, that system.
Melanie Kirby:So industrialized agriculture has really, uh, even affected the beekeeping industry.
Melanie Kirby:There's not very many Commercial producers and the ones that are large scale tend
Melanie Kirby:to produce the same things over and over.
Melanie Kirby:And so the diversity, the genetic diversity of our American bees has really started to dwindle and so
Melanie Kirby:much so that there are some, some researchers who feel that there's a real genetic bottle-necking.
Melanie Kirby:So when you get a genetic bottleneck, then you can start to get inbreeding, right?
Melanie Kirby:And when you start to get inbreeding the bees don't have the natural ability , to
Melanie Kirby:really perform as well as they could.
Melanie Kirby:Then you add on pesticides, loss of habitat.
Melanie Kirby:Compromised agricultural practices, all these different things and so it's a lot of different whammies,
Melanie Kirby:especially on this one, critter that's been exploited and become the backbone of American agriculture.
Melanie Kirby:So my efforts have really been to show an alternative to that approach, which is, we can
Melanie Kirby:have bees, but we can have bees responsibly.
Melanie Kirby:We can also promote all these other various species of bees, which there's over 20,000 worldwide, but
Melanie Kirby:there's, over 4,000 here in north America that we have, whether that's bumblebees or sweat bees or what
Melanie Kirby:we call or alkaline bees, we have blue orchard bees.
Melanie Kirby:We have so many different kinds of bees.
Melanie Kirby:And I just barely, mentioned a few, but we have over 4,000 kinds, so honey bees have really broadened my
Melanie Kirby:world , to the larger world of pollinators and my peace Corps experience also really broadened my mind to just
Melanie Kirby:global food systems and the real importance of what I call place and purpose, in pollinator conservation.
Melanie Kirby:So I've, I try to approach things, not only from my, my, studies that I've done in various places, but a
Melanie Kirby:lot of it is very much rooted in my indigenous heritage and in my indigenous worldview, which is that we are
Melanie Kirby:all connected and that we are all relatives to each other, even us and the animals, we are relatives.
Melanie Kirby:And so we have a responsibility.
Melanie Kirby:When I talk about the importance of place and, and purpose, there's also power, right?
Melanie Kirby:But that power is responsibility in how we steward our, our planet.
Catherine:This is incredibly educational . I am learning so much.
Catherine:And I'm so thankful for your expertise in the studies you've done.
Catherine:Why is it that the honey bee
Catherine:is the chosen one.
Catherine:You were talking about the specialized pollinators.
Catherine:I want the butterfly to sustain itself.
Catherine:I want those little, and I don't know what they're called, but the little colorful, beautiful
Melanie Kirby:moths,
Melanie Kirby:. The hummingbirds.
Melanie Kirby:I would like the hummingbirds
Catherine:to sustain themselves as well.
Catherine:They're not an insect, obviously.
Catherine:. We do need the honey bees.
Catherine:What do you see as a researcher out there with
Melanie Kirby:other people
Catherine:you've talked to who might be researching the butterflies or
Catherine:the hummingbirds and not losing them?
Melanie Kirby:That's a really good point.
Melanie Kirby:I like this question because , we do have to ask ourselves.
Melanie Kirby:If we want these various organisms to sustain themselves and to survive, then what is it that we need
Melanie Kirby:to do or should be doing in order to allow for that to happen and especially for it to happen naturally.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:And unfortunately, the Anthropocene era, which is us, this man sort of dominated
Melanie Kirby:era era has really altered a lot of things.
Melanie Kirby:We've altered the landscape, we've built dams.
Melanie Kirby:We put in roads, we've blown up mountains.
Melanie Kirby:We've made lakes.
Melanie Kirby:We've really changed the landscape.
Melanie Kirby:And then in how we've stewarded, it we've changed it.
Melanie Kirby:So we really have affected these other organisms that have used these various lands, just like us to survive.
Melanie Kirby:And so how can we undo that?
Melanie Kirby:Well, we can't fully undo it, right.
Melanie Kirby:We still need to drive from here to there.
Melanie Kirby:I'm sitting in a vehicle, right.
Melanie Kirby:So obviously I drive.
Melanie Kirby:But how can we find a way so that it's symbiotic and that that we can coexist, right.
Melanie Kirby:And really support a quality of life that's, that's positive for all these organisms.
Melanie Kirby:So what's really interesting is that there are a lot of efforts.
Melanie Kirby:There's a research efforts looking at various other kinds of pollinator
Melanie Kirby:species to help with pollination needs.
Melanie Kirby:The blue orchard bees leafcutter bees there's a few of these, uh, What we call Mason or carpenter bees.
Melanie Kirby:So they live in wood or even in mud but they make tubes out of it.
Melanie Kirby:There are some efforts to, to manage those meaning, to to start to keep those kinds of bees and to be
Melanie Kirby:able to share them for agriculture, one of the reasons honey bees have been exploited though, is because
Melanie Kirby:the management of them is actually quite forgiving.
Melanie Kirby:They can live in a variety of different conditions, in a variety of different, even a boat.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:And so they're more manageable than some of these other species that say live
Melanie Kirby:in the ground or live, uh, in reeds.
Melanie Kirby:So it's really hard to manage those that you can't, find in a tree trunk and you keep the tree trunk.
Melanie Kirby:Over time, there's over 200 patented hive designs, but again, there's only a couple or few of them
Melanie Kirby:that have really become more popular over, over time, even though there's so many and people can
Melanie Kirby:create new ones, as long as they respect, what's called bee space, which is the very critical spacing
Melanie Kirby:between the Combs of the bees like to follow.
Melanie Kirby:And so interestingly, I think one of the reasons that honey bees have become so exploited is
Melanie Kirby:for several reasons, but one of the main reasons is that they produce food for us
Melanie Kirby:above and beyond their pollination services.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:They're producing honey, which a lot of these other solitary species of bees, they make a little
Melanie Kirby:bit of honey, but just for themselves and for their young for the, for the next generation.
Melanie Kirby:Honey bees on the other hand, because they're generalist pollinators so
Melanie Kirby:they can visit a variety of crops.
Melanie Kirby:But the fact that they can grow in their own hive numbers means that they have a lot of
Melanie Kirby:workforce, so they can collect a lot of honey.
Melanie Kirby:And they can collect if it's a good area, they can collect more than what they need.
Melanie Kirby:So then as a beekeeper, we can go and harvest what is extra, right?
Melanie Kirby:So there used to be, well, there still is.
Melanie Kirby:There's three kinds of, of bee people.
Melanie Kirby:There's bee killers, bee Havers, and then bee keepers.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:I don't think I like the first one, bee killers were kind of these Well, let's go
Melanie Kirby:back pretty far back in history, right?
Melanie Kirby:Where, uh, a wild swarm was found and, you would just cut down the comb and take
Melanie Kirby:what you could and you'd destroy the nest.
Melanie Kirby:Right?
Melanie Kirby:You would just take it bee Havers, where people who will we have them but we don't really manage them.
Melanie Kirby:If a piece of comb drops and we can get it and keep it, we will, but we're not gonna
Melanie Kirby:necessarily go in there and destroy the nest.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:A beekeeper on the other hand is somebody who is actively managing and working with with the creature.
Melanie Kirby:So whether that's, chickens, horses, goats lizards, frogs, there's frog, farm, I think
Melanie Kirby:in Brazil or bees, you're interacting with them and you're providing what they need.
Melanie Kirby:You're making sure they have, , all their necessities taken care of, or at
Melanie Kirby:least you're trying to manage for that.
Melanie Kirby:Trying to make sure they don't get sick.
Melanie Kirby:And you're also bringing them into your place or just specific places that you're choosing to have them.
Melanie Kirby:Right.
Melanie Kirby:So it's one thing if a bee came, a colony came, a swarm, moved into a tree in your backyard.
Melanie Kirby:You can't necessarily go in there and manage them, right?
Melanie Kirby:So you have them, but you're not keeping them.
Melanie Kirby:But if say you live in the city and you decide, I want to have a hive in my backyard, I'm going to order one.
Melanie Kirby:I'm going to order a package of bees and I'm going to buy some; when and where to
Melanie Kirby:put them in the, now you are specifically choosing to bring them into that space.
Melanie Kirby:And that is a big responsibility.
Melanie Kirby:And I think sometimes people forget that because we think, oh, well, they're
Melanie Kirby:just insects and nature provides.
Melanie Kirby:And you just put bugs in a box and let them do their own thing.
Melanie Kirby:Well, that would've been great and all had we not changed the landscape, but we've changed the landscape.
Melanie Kirby:We've built cities, we've put in sidewalks.
Melanie Kirby:We've been very strategic about what plants are planted, even on medians or what have you.
Melanie Kirby:So, I think it's, it's something to be noted that when people decide they want to have bees, that
Melanie Kirby:they really do their own research into having them.
Melanie Kirby:And that's what actually kept me from having my own for so long.
Melanie Kirby:I worked for other people for a period of eight years as a beekeeper, but not having my own hives.
Melanie Kirby:And I was learning so much.
Melanie Kirby:And I, and I thought, gosh, there's so much to learn.
Melanie Kirby:I'm never going to be ready to have them.
Melanie Kirby:But then I hit a point where I was like, I'm always going to be learning with them.
Melanie Kirby:Every season is different and every hive has their own personality.
Melanie Kirby:And so I finally decided, okay, I am ready to have my own and to try to do right by them as best I can.
Melanie Kirby:Which I don't, some years I lose hives.
Melanie Kirby:They, they die, whether it's due to viruses or not enough food or what have you.
Melanie Kirby:So my management choices are to try, like I said, to mimic what nature in her ideal
Melanie Kirby:state can provide for them within reason.
Melanie Kirby:Right?
Melanie Kirby:So my bees, if they're going to be hungry, say there's a drought.
Melanie Kirby:I can either leave them in my, in the apiary, which is where they reside and
Melanie Kirby:bring them food or let them starve.
Melanie Kirby:Right?
Melanie Kirby:So I'd have to make a choice.
Melanie Kirby:If there's a drought, do I bring them food or can I take them to new pasture or do I just let them, starve?
Melanie Kirby:And so I make the choice.
Melanie Kirby:If I have another place to take them, I will burn the fossil fuels to put them on a truck and drive them
Melanie Kirby:there because I'd much rather they have natural forage than anything that I could make that may sustain them.
Melanie Kirby:But that isn't healthy in the long run.
Melanie Kirby:However, if it's drought conditions everywhere and there's no, I can't
Melanie Kirby:find another place to take them then.
Melanie Kirby:Yeah.
Melanie Kirby:I'm definitely gonna make what I call a tea.
Melanie Kirby:And I try and make it as, as close to nectar as I can.
Melanie Kirby:I mean, it's sugar water, but I add a bunch of different herbs to it in tea bags
Melanie Kirby:to kind of infuse it with these herbal essences, which is what bees normally eat
Melanie Kirby:is nectar and pollens from, from plants in nature.
Melanie Kirby:So, there's, there's different ways of beekeeping.
Melanie Kirby:And I think as people figure out what their own philosophy is, what their community has, and what their
Melanie Kirby:community can support, meaning the landscape then they can determine if that's a good fit for them or not.
Melanie Kirby:And what I like to really encourage people to do similar to your guests, you mentioned from
Melanie Kirby:Norway is that bees are, are needed and more beekeepers are needed, but not all in the same spot.
Melanie Kirby:And it really starts first and foremost with habitat.
Melanie Kirby:So we really need to build up and support and keep our Wildlands and our wild landscapes and even
Melanie Kirby:our urban landscapes diverse and have a variety of blooms so that it can feed all the various
Melanie Kirby:organisms that deserve to be on this planet
Melanie Kirby:along with us.
Catherine:Now I want to talk about your queen bees
Catherine:your positive imprint.