On our quest to become self-sufficient here on our farm in the highland jungle of the Peruvian Amazon we’ve needed to be creative. We’ve planted new foods and tried over and over again to try to grow foods we’ve known all our lives. Blending our old lives with the new. This week our adventures have been sticky sweet and golden brown.
We are determined to become beekeepers. We’ve two main reasons behind this: the first is for pollination, the second is that we consume a lot of honey. We’ve been known as a family to go through between 1.5 to 3 kilos in a month! Good reasons to have our own bees.
We are lucky to be hosting a colony of Rimichi bees
However, these tiny bees do not provide the quantities we need.
Our second option is another wild stingless bee call Rubia (or blond bees). These beauties are larger and produce more.
The third option would be a variety known as Brava, that are honeybees crossed with African bees. These bees fo indeed sting. However their honey production of 5-7 kilos up to 3 times a year per colony would be a good start.
To get us going we received a great gift: a starting box. We’ve now tied it amongst some trees. We are hoping to invite a colony to inhabit the frames. This is the time of year that we could expect a swarm. We would then transfer them to a larger top-bar hive.
Our fingers are crossed, as they usually are at the start of a new adventure! It makes for an exciting life here in the jungle! 💜
Esencia Adaptivore 
Quel beau projet. Félicitations pour cet informatif blog.
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Merci!
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