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If you’ve ever traveled on I-25 between Belen and Socorro you will probably have seen the yellow “honey truck” glowing out of the desert landscape on the west side of the interstate. Here, a hive of activity has existed for over two decades as the buzzing Bee Chama honey shop.
In a building built with recycled and natural materials, such as mud, straw bales and reclaimed glass doors from a gas station’s cold storage, Bee Chama produces and sells an eclectic selection of raw, unfiltered honey blends while educating the public on pollinator health, sustainable agriculture, and the art of beekeeping.
Owner Shay Kelley and her partner Eric Glesne have transformed what began as a “little closet” of honey jars into a full-fledged honey and apothecary-inspired store whose shelves hold at least 24 varieties of raw honey made by bees that have feasted on pollen from desert marigold to rabbit brush to Mountain Gambel Oak, the last a blend so rare it’s harvested only once every seven years.
Longtime beekeeper Glesne maintains about 400 colonies along the Rio Grande, collecting honey produced from local plants like sage, mesquite, and alfalfa, as well as plants in northern New Mexico and parts of Arizona and Colorado. The shop also offers honey from beekeepers located outside the Southwest that provide their bees with berry and fruit tree blossoms.
Local honey, Kelley said, can do more than sweeten tea. “It’s those plant pollens that are in the honey that actually help treat allergies… you’re eating a little bit of your allergen, and it helps the body’s immune system learn not to freak out about it,” she said.
Honey, which is a natural antiseptic, also has an indefinite shelf life, and once crystallized can be easily warmed back up to its original state. In fact, viable honey has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Kelley’s version of pralines can be found in jars of crystallized honey coating pecans and walnuts, and she even has a blend with cacao that is what she called a healthier alternative to a candy bar.
Beyond honey, Bee Chama offers 45 handmade skincare products under Kelley’s Heritage Skin Foods brand created to help address issues of collagen loss, neuropathy, restless leg syndrome and more, along with a variety of teas from New Mexico blenders and an inventive line of flavorful infused honeys — everything from green or red chile to adaptogenetic blends aimed to tackle inflammation, immune support, detoxification, and hair, skin and nails.
The shop, which is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at 233 I-25 Frontage Rd in Lemitar, NM, also offers other bee products with great holistic benefits, such as B-Vitamin rich bee pollen that Kelley compared to a nutritionally dense prenatal vitamin, and propalis, which helps speed up healing.
But Bee Chama’s mission goes beyond retail. Kelley is outspoken about the threats facing the business of bees, from pesticide use to pasteurized “fraudulent” imports she said have been lab tested to show they contain corn syrup and no pollens but are still labeled as “honey” at retail chains.
“Something like two out of every three bites of food we eat is pollinated by a bee,” she said. “It’s a very difficult time to be a beekeeper… pesticide use weakens bees’ immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases and parasites they’ve been living with for hundreds of years.”
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Bee Chama avoids the high-risk commercial pollination contracts that dominate U.S. beekeeping where pesticide use is par for the course, focusing instead on wildflower honey from New Mexico’s open lands.
“This is one of the best places to keep bees,” Kelley said. “We have so much open land that’s not impacted by pesticides.”
From rare honeys to alpacas—including a new baby named Bruno—grazing out front, Kelley’s goal is simple: celebrate bees and the bounty they provide.
“I don’t know anybody that’s a beekeeper that doesn’t love it,” she said.
A small selection of Bee Chama honey is also available at Southwest Feed in Socorro for those in need of a quick “honey fix,” as well as at events like Socorro Fest and the Balloon Fiesta.
