Queens of Their Hives

Gift of Life

As women, they have often been excluded from development opportunities, so part of the network's efforts has focused on implementing informational workshops, on topics including human development, production, organisation, commercialisation, and administration. These efforts help build capacity, maintain production, bolster management, and engender a recognition among the women that they can serve as agents of change in their communities.

Honey heals

In addition to selling honey through the co-operative’s Yaal-Kab brand, the members have developed personal hygiene and beauty products including soaps, body and facial creams, and shampoos.

The objective of the brand is to provide marketing opportunities to the subsidiary producers, since one of the main obstacles to selling melipona honey or its products is the lack of access to markets. For these women, establishing trust with customers is a priority in order to render this less-known specialty honey financially viable.

Since 2018, the Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme (SGP), which is implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), has been supporting the co-operative with materials and equipment to establish processing centres that guarantee quality production, so that customers can benefit from the honey’s unique properties, which in turn leads to the promotion of biodiversity conservation.

Lack of consumer familiarity with their products and the risks of counterfeit honey are not the only threats the women have faced.

The 2020 hurricane season in the Yucatán Peninsula brought tropical storms and torrential rains, generating temporary losses for nearly every network member. Soila Aquino says that of the 56 boxes they had before the floods, they were only able to rescue 17, a significant setback.

Soila Aquino says that, of the 56 boxes they had before the floods, they were only able to rescue 17, losing almost all their progress.

Pollinating Change

In Mexico, SGP promotes beekeeping and meliponiculture with a comprehensive approach that includes promoting biodiversity conservation in the landscape that provides nectar and pollen: the Mayan forest.

For 26 years, it has supported a network of 76 beekeeping projects with a territorial vision, through strategies that are designed by local communities themselves and promote mutual learning and scaling up.

For beekeeping, organic management and fair trade are supported to generate environmental and livelihood benefits.

In the case of meliponiculture, support for this sector offers new economic opportunities to more than 300 women and men, while rescuing a species threatened by environmental degradation and deforestation.

In both sectors, SGP also promotes fair value chains, which make it possible to connect producers with responsible consumers.

The products from the Yaal-Kab brand are the result of the work of over 90 empowered women who, in their quest for economic independence, have achieved a symbiotic relationship with their environment.

The bees not only benefit their protectors directly, but also generate better crops in the locations where their colonies are found, since their pollination promotes diversity among plants and improves the quality of the local fruits. In exchange, the women provide key habitat and protection for the rare indigenous bees.