Honeybees gone wild

And on a more somber note, Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

From left to right, David Alire Garcia, beekeeper Ed Costanza and KNME's Josh Keenan -- and lots of bees in between.

By David Alire Garcia 08/03/2008

I got a chance to check out the Costanza family’s Belen apple orchard last week with some of my colleagues from KNME. We paid the visit in order to get up close and personal with one of the many bee hives Ed Costanza helps maintain. In the one he took apart in front of me over the course of about an hour, I gazed down at what the beekeeper estimated to be 60,000 bees.

Costanza took apart the hive one thin shelve at a time, each jam packed with clusters of buzzing bees on top of elegantly symmetrical honey combs. On some of the shelves, the entire surface was saturated with vibrating bees. On some of the shelves, streaks of honey were visible on the surface thanks in large part to the midday blast of sunshine.

Costanza gave a glimpse of his healthy harvest by pealing off some wax to show a think layer of honey down below.

In response to a question about why bees make honey, Costanza pointed both to what he considered God’s provision of food for humans, as well as a detailed biological understanding of how these fascinating, industrious creatures transform pollen into honey.

The purpose of the trip to Costaza bee hive was this past weekend’s episode of New Mexico In Focus, where we tried to get a better handle – and local perspectives – on what’s known as Bee Colony Collapse Disorder. NMI’s Denise Tessier has ably covered this perplexing phenomena here and here.

Here's the In Focus segment from our trip to Belen:

And here’s my in-studio interviews from Friday night’s show with master beekeeper Les Crowder, Richard "The Bugman" Fagerlund – whose syndicated column appears in the Albuquerque Journal every Saturday – and Charles Martin, an agriculture specialist from New Mexico State University.

Also, make sure to also check out this lively blog posted by KNME producer Kevin McDonald, that contains two bonus features:

1) The revelation I did get stung once by supposedly gentle bees. (Actually, Costanza induced a honey-gorging-induced stupor via regular puffs of smoke – the bees apparently gorge themselves on honey in case they need to abandon the hive and start a new one in the event of an actual fire – and for the most part it worked. They were gentle. Except for random bees crawling on the ground, one of which, somehow, got inside my jeans and traveled up my leg inside my pants. Not good. Luckily, I guess, I got stung on the side of my knee, and not further up.

And 2) This very cool behind-the-scenes video. It’s the handiwork of KNME’s Kathy Wimmer (camera) and Josh Keenan, who edited much of the video against a Gypsy Kings-ish frantic guitar solo!