In Guatemala, Mayan communities have been raising a native bee species known as the “melipona” bee for thousands of years. While small amounts of honey are harvested from the stinger-less bee colonies, these bees also play an important role as pollinators for the unique flora of the Guatemalan highlands.
Additionally, the white honey produced by this species of bee also is used by traditional midwives and healers for several medicinal purposes. Unlike massive, commercial bee raising operations, raising small melipona bee colonies is often an integral part of a holistic, diversified form of ancestral, family agriculture, wherein these stingless bees provide ecological services and a needed food and medicine source.
People have been raising bees for thousands of years. The honey they produced gave humanity its first sweet tooth, and fermenting honey into mead may very well have given our ancestors their first hang over.
An organization is a honeycomb
CONAPI’s constitution states that it includes 809 producers, 111 women and 698 men, who together manage a total of 43,254 hives, or some 50 hives per producer. “And the reactivation of CONAPI is one of the great achievements of CDAIS” says William Velásquez. “We are all fully in tune with the methodology that CDAIS proposed, and with time, the results are being realized… We have a joint account and in legal terms everything is in order; from the receipt of donations to the issuing of expenses.” And he adds that “CDAIS interventions have been a directly cause of this rejuvenated national platform that has benefited all our us and will surely bring more in years to come.”
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