Honey production in Macas, Ecuador

This recently formed association of families aims to improve their standard of living by generating income through the production and selling of honey and other bee-related products (the bees themselves, wax and at a later stage pollen). The project is mainly directed towards increasing income and contributes indirectly to the protection of the rainforest in that area which due to poverty, is being cut to clear lands. Also, the conventional way of looking for honey in the forest by smoking out the bees is causing forest fires. The honey will be sold on the local/national market. Market studies have been done.

ATASIM (Asociación de Trabajadores Agropecuarios Isabel De Macas) is an organization of workers based in southern town of Macas in Ecuador. They are running various projects to improve living conditions in combination with nature conservation. To achieve this goal they started this apiculture project with the goal to produce and sell honey as an alternative to forest destruction. Members of the organization followed a course in bee-keeping and established contact with honey sellers. They managed to buy the materials needed to keep bees and constructed a house which will hopefully be used in the future for community education on conservation. Regrettably the production and the selling of the honey was not successful because the species of bees used turned out to only have a good honey production in colder climates. With the project ATASIM obtained knowledge and materials to achieve their goals with local bees in the near future. It is hoped that with this knowledge they will also take the local communities and the environment into account.