Words by Santiago Goodhue age 18 of Taos NM
Chasing the bloom as winter starts to loosen its icy grip and the ground begins to thaw the cycle begins. It's time to start work. The end of March begins the blossoming of the incredibly frost hearty buffalo berry. This awakens the hibernating pollinators of the Taos valley, and marks the time to begin moving the bees from the winter pastures of our local communities down to our traditional orchards of the villages of Velarde and Ohkay Owingeh to pollinate, first the apricot blossom then the plum, finishing with apples and cherries.
This is a very important time in the cycle of life. Many families rely on our skills to bring the bees to ensure a healthy and plentiful harvest, to maintain traditional living styles and livelihood for the agricultural regions of northern Nuevo Mexico. Great care and instincts must be used at this time as many forces of nature are taking place, such as the awakening of the formidable hungry Taos Osos, possible Sangre de Cristos blizzards, flooding, and horrible relentless spring wind. Rapid weather change from hot to cold can confuse the bees. Forest fires, and whatever else mother nature has in store for us and our bees, creating a demanding lifestyle.
Working early mornings and late nights for a labor of love, we begin by taking stock of what bees made it through the harsh winter. We use the survivors to create new life for many generations of future bees. We use a survival-of-the-fittest technique because we don’t believe in using commercial beekeeping processes which use harsh chemicals, neurotoxins, antibiotics and toxic acid all of which are cruel and non sustainable to bees and humans alike. Many of these poisons are fat soluble which breaks down into the honey and combs, which ultimately contaminates the honey and any product related to that bee hive forever, also degrading the genetic pool of future bees. This is why we choose to do what is right and follow our traditions of organic agricultural practices.
My dad has been using the same strong surviving genetics of bees of northern New Mexico for the last 30 years, far longer than I have been alive. During the late 1990's globalization and mono farming caused colonies of bees to suffer tremendous loss and spread parasitic mites, viruses and toxins to bees across the world.
The end of March and beginning of April is a delicate time period we use to travel to each bee yard, to check on the surviving bees and assess any damages inflicted upon bees and hives. The bee yards are locations all across northern New Mexico giving a small sanctuary by like minded norteña y norteño ranchers and farmers who want to give the bees sanctuary on a very small piece of their land. We must quickly come to a conclusion of how to safely make the journey and take the survivors to the southern orchards to begin the cycle of chasing the bloom.
Arriving with our packages of life, we can smell the sweet scents of the apricot and plum blossoms and hear the flow of the Rio Grande, feeling the currents of the acequia irrigating under the light of the moon. This is our most crucial time as the cycle begins to pollinate and start raising our most important asset, our survivor stock and queen bees.This process is done with limited time and resources. We make do with what we’ve got. And we load the bees onto my grandfather's old trailer and ol’ rusty trusty truck starting at dusk. This must be done in darkness so the bees don't fly and they stay in their little wooden boxes and are safe and warm.
We bring them from the high country of Taos to the Velarde valley at the foot of the rio. We have to beware of our surroundings as Velarde has a rich history and folklore of many frightful, paranormal things, not to mention the bombardment of violence, drugs, alcohol, gangs and human trafficking fed by the flow of the ancient Camino Real. By the time we reach the Velarde valley it's late and all these forces are at play especially on all the eerie misty bumpy back roads that most folks don't ever get to see or even know exist.
I've grown up hearing tales of La Llorona, skinwalkers, chupacabra, ghosts, faceless men, and the haunts of Oñate’s unfathomable atrocities and beyond.
...and yet, we have an important job to do in this beautiful bosque where the gigantic slumbering cottonwoods are now awakening. We now remember each gate and backroad that leads to the life-giving orchards where we must deliver our precious cargo. Carefully and delicately navigating each orchard while assessing how many hives to successfully pollinate each location, typically 10 strong hives for 400 mature fruit trees, leaving hundreds of thousands of little workers to do the cycle of life, a delicate dance of pollination. This is only a glimpse of the beginning, a constant cycle of our life with the bees.