New Mexico firefighter creates buzz
Beekeeper gets national attention for rescuing swarm from parked car
LAS CRUCES, N.M. – Las Cruces firefighter Jesse Johnson received national attention this past week for rescuing a large swarm of bees that gathered in a man’s car while he was shopping at a local Albertsons.
But this once-in-a-lifetime experience is enough for him.
On March 28, Johnson was asked to help retrieve a swarm of bees that had made their way into a man’s vehicle in the Albertsons parking lot while he was shopping. It was not until he started to drive off that he noticed the bees. The Las Cruces Fire Department was called, but it was the off-duty Johnson who was asked to help.
He arrived with his gear and was able to relocate the swarm to a hive box using a hive kit and lemongrass oil. The box ended up weighing about 31⁄2 pounds, which he explained is the weight of a well-established hive when purchasing one from a commercial beekeeper. This equates to roughly 15,000 bees. They were relocated to Johnson’s home, placed among his other hives. They were given food and are settling into their new home.
News outlets including The New York Times, “Today,” “Good Morning America” and many others throughout the country have told the story of the bees and reached out to Johnson for comment.
“It’s really cool. But when it goes away, I won’t miss it,” he said.
Johnson was introduced to beekeeping by his father around age 7 or 8. They worked together on hives they kept while living in the Mesilla Valley. For the past 10 years, he has been in a position to return to his hobby. He currently has four working hives on the acre of land he has outside Mesilla, New Mexico, though he has had up to 12 hives.
“I don’t consider myself a production beekeeper. I just do it as a hobby for honey for friends and family and myself,” Johnson said. “Anything over about four or five hives, it’s a lot of work. You’re going to be working them more when it comes time to harvest. It’s a couple full days of work.”
Spring is the time of year bees tend to swarm if they are part of a strong hive, explained Johnson. The colony will split and the old queen will leave with half of the hive to find a suitable location for a new hive. This is their form of propagation. Bees will land on an object, usually a tree, and scout bees will search for a location to establish a hive.
Johnson said a hot car in a busy parking lot was an unusual location to stop, but they would likely have left within a few hours.
Bees tend to swarm in March and April when plants bloom and plenty of pollen is around. In good years bees might swarm again on a smaller scale during the fall. Johnson explained that hives that swarm are in transition and are rarely aggressive because they do not have a hive to protect.
Bees have been an endangered species for many years due to colony collapse disorder, climate change, habitat decline, pesticide use and other reasons. But bees are the most common pollinators and pollinate crops that account for about one-third of the food eaten by Americans, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Johnson said rescuing the swarm from the car was never about getting attention but protecting the bees – especially since they were likely from a very strong colony based on their numbers.
“With the decline of them just comes so many more problems with agriculture and food production and plant growth,” Johnson said. “And especially in southern New Mexico, we can’t lose any more already. We have so much agriculture: pecans and green chile, alfalfa, you name it, it’s all over.”
He mentioned that a positive that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic is that people are spending more time outside, in their gardens and are recognizing the importance of pollinators. And a positive that came with the national attention he is getting is that it has been publicity for the bees.
Johnson encouraged people to remember that swarms are generally not a danger and that calling an exterminator “probably isn’t the best. They’ll mosey on” with a little patience. Non-emergency dispatch numbers can be called for help. He said the recently rescued bees are currently getting used to their new surroundings and will hopefully start producing honey later in the year.