Beekeeping is a passion for Air Guardsman Published Dec. 4, 2014 By Ryan Stark Nucleus writer KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- Beekeeping started with a garden and grew into a labor of love for New Mexico Air National Guard Chief Master Sgt. Craig Noorlander. Noorlander, who has spent 30 years with the Guard, serves as chief of communications. His first foray into beekeeping dates back to when he moved to a one-acre lot in the Edgewood area -- about 35 minutes east of Kirtland -- in 2003 and needed bees to help pollinate his garden. "I fell completely in love with it," he said. "I just started to look into it to see what we could do to get them to pollinate our garden." He read books and talked to local beekeepers. He started with two hives, but many more hives were to follow. Fast forward to 2014. Noorlander is developing a 75-acre bee farm that boasts nearly 40 hives with many more planned. He also stays busy by selling honey through his company, Papa Bear Honey, selling bees to other beekeepers, teaching classes on beekeeping and serving as vice president of the New Mexico Beekeepers Association. "I call it a passion," he says. "My wife calls it an obsession." Noorlander said he is fascinated with many aspects of how bees operate, both individually and as collectives. He explained how he uses a small can of smoldering papers and other materials to pump smoke into each hive, which calms the bees. He said the bees react to the smoke by hunkering down, because smoke could indicate a forest fire. It takes 21 days for a worker bee to develop from an egg, he said. It's the workers that keep the hive temperature uniform -- around 95 degrees. If it's too hot, they'll fan the hive with their wings, Noorlander said. The workers also gather pollen and other material needed to maintain the hive. It takes a few days longer, 24 days, for a drone to develop. Drones are male honeybees. One of their main jobs is to fertilize eggs. The drones are also the most expendable bees. If things start going bad, they're the first ones to be kicked out of the hive. One way bees communicate is by using pheromones, or by scent. They have signals to warn of danger, to call "undertaker" bees to remove a dead member and much more, he said. And bees sense the position of the sun in the sky electromagnetically with special eyes on the backs of their heads, he said. He also talked about how long a queen bee can effectively breed and how some types of bees change roles within their colony during their life cycle. Some say as long as seven years, but Noorlander said he replaces queens sooner than that. Noorlander began teaching bee classes in 2008 and continues to learn and share what he knows. "I am constantly trying to learn more and then mentor people," he said. "As I learned more, I wanted to teach, even though I still consider myself a new beekeeper." Through teaching and distributing bees, he said he would like to make an impact on beekeeping in New Mexico. "You lose bees in New Mexico. Hives die," he said. "It's more about being a good steward, and listening to the bees." It should be no surprise that Noorlander knows exactly what he wants to do once he retires from the Guard. "This is my exit plan," he said. "I'd like to build it up and at some point. Have a self-sustaining bee population." For more about Noorlander's operation, visit www.papabearhoney.com.