Insect and Spider Identification: CLOSED: Unknown Swarm on My Pine Tree, 3 by pflo

pflo wrote:
The pictures show a swarm of small bugs that I at first thought was some sort of mold or soil around the base of my pine tree. My eyeglasses are in the pictures for scale - or at least the end of the glasses' temple in the closeup. The bugs are climbing the tree and appear to be pretty much all over it from what I can tell.

I live in Albuquerque, NM (USA) and it has been windy and chilly lately (10 degrees below normal), but yesterday was back to average at around 70°F and today it got up close to 80°. We're in the midst of a big drought and the tree is well watered, but not excessively (last time was 2-3 weeks ago).

Any ideas what they are? What, if anything, should I do?