A nectar nomad got her start in the Peace Corps

“I’ve traveled many a bumpy road, in the darkest of nights — serving as a chau≠eur to beings of sweet starlight. I migrate with them, like a shepherdess with her flock of winged midwives — a fellow follower of the bloom, a self-proclaimed Nectar Nomad.”

This quote is one of mine that I have been blessed to share time and again through a happy “accidental” assignment as a beekeeping extensionist volunteer for the United States Peace Corps. I enlisted in 1997 after graduating from St. John’s College in Santa Fe. But my inspiration to enlist and my connection to the Peace Corps began much earlier…

Flashback to 1969, when my mother, the youngest of five born and raised in Las Cruces, graduated from New Mexico State University with a degree in English and decided to enlist as a Peace Corps volunteer. She taught Spanish. After her twoyear service commitment, she met my father, a local fisherman. They married, and she brought him back to New Mexico with her.

Shortly thereafter, I was born. And we moved from Las Cruces to New York City. I don’t remember any of this because I was just a toddler. And then my mother got pregnant with my sister, and we moved back to Las Cruces. To this day, my mother, Rosa Maria (Rosemary) Estrada Kirby (now retired from Las Cruces Public Schools and a two-time National Teaching Award winner from both the Clinton and Obama administrations), says serving in the Peace Corps was one of the greatest experiences of her life.

I remember this because it inspired me to enlist as a volunteer as well. I knew that after graduating from Mayfield High School in Las Cruces and getting a bachelor’s degree, I wanted to enlist in the Peace Corps. I was stationed from 1997-99 in Paraguay, and I am so grateful that experience broadened my perspective of the world and what it means to be a cultural and technical ambassador for my country. It also introduced me to my career path as a professional apiculturist (beekeeper).

Learning to work with bees and their keepers has taken me around mi tierra encantada but also the world. I’ve had the blessed opportunities to travel and work in places from Hawaii to Central America, the Caribbean, across North America to the Mediterranean and North Africa. I’ve collaborated on broader projects promoting healthy pollinator stewardship domestically and internationally.

I’ve taken the skills I learned to establish Zia Queenbees Farm & Field Institute (ziaqueenbees. com) based in Northern New Mexico. I’ve shared bees and taught classes from Las Cruces to Taos. I established my queen bee breeding farm in Northern New Mexico in 2005 and have been able to provide pollination services for various communities, pueblos and institutions across our state. And all this because I chose to serve my country, and it chose me to represent it as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer.

I write this — 25 years since my initial service — to express my gratitude to the Peace Corps for teaching me so much about the world and helping me to bridge cultures and concepts as beekeeper, a sustainable food systems advocate, a writer and storyteller, and a scientist. Those interested in serving their country, learning more about the world and who want to be of service should consider becoming a Peace Corps volunteer and supporting its continuance as a federal program demonstrating that Americans are interested and capable of helping others.

Melanie Margarita Kirby serves as the extension educator for the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her bee farm — Zia Queenbees — is located on the high road to Taos. Her home is New Mexico, over the river and through the woods from the Rio Grande up to the Sangre de Cristo mountain range.