The current situation of bees has been reported as “alarming”, honey production per hive has decreased not only in Yucatan, but throughout the world, so “we need to handle this situation as a life project” said Nelly Ortiz Vázquez, director of the interactive park Abeja Planet, during a press conference held on October 17, in the presence of Albert Baena, director of the Cuxtal Ecological Reserve and Ivonne González Abrego, who will serve as the representative of the Union of Beekeepers and Meliponiculturists of Yucatan, which will integrate the majority of beekeepers in the Cuxtal ecological reserve.
Next Sunday, October 21 at 11 am the conference: “How to start your own apiary and appropriate organic production” within the Cuxtal Reserve, where Abeja Planet is located, and will begin with an apicultural talk by the Cuban geneticist Martha Vázquez, entitled “Genetics and Health, allies for modern beekeeping”.
“If the bees are genetically healthy, with low Africanization but do not have a favorable environment, we can not predict a good production,” said Nelly Ortiz, who also stressed the need to work in the care of the environment, “we need more people to join this project, because we are talking about reforesting “, as the passage of hurricanes has devastated the vegetation of the area.
Low honey production
Nelly Ortiz remembers that when she graduated as a beekeeper, the production was 50 kilos per hive, now they only produce 5.5 kilos of honey per hive, of this “we are all affected, if the bee ceases to exist there will be no pollination, no recovery of biodiversity, this is a serious matter that concerns everyone. ”
“Ten years ago 10,000 tons of honey were produced in Yucatan, today the annual production has come down to 6,500; we believe that this year, due to the good condition of the plants, and if the beekeepers have good maintenance of their hives, we will reach 7 tons, hopefully 8… but still far from the 10-ton figure,” said the director of Abeja Planet.
With these activities, they seek to promote the consumption of honey, encourage a new generation of beekeepers and protect bees, and consequently, protect the environment.
Cuxtal Ecological Reserve (Photo: laverdadnoticias.com)
Cuxtal Ecological Reserve
The Cuxtal Ecological Reserve is located south of Mérida in the state of Yucatán in southeastern Mexico. It is a designated “green space” for the Mérida Municipality made up of 21,514 acres of land that was designated in 1993 as an ecological and historic preservation area.
Alberto Baena, director of the Cuxtal Reserve, said that this effort will seek to reverse the ecological degradation of the area since 1993, due to the lack of strategic planning. The Reserve is looking to implement several measures to achieve this goal, including payment for environmental services, tax incentives to entrepreneurs who want to donate and the implementation of productive projects. He stressed the importance of prevention and the dissemination of “good technical information”.
He considered that the current monitoring of the reserve is not enough, since there are only eleven people in the field and it is made up of 10,757 hectares, of which 60 have been closed due to felling.
Almost 23,000 people live in the southern neighborhoods of Mérida; Baena emphasized that housing needs to be well planned, and under no circumstances should subdivisions be built without carry out environmental impact studies.
All the information about Abeja Planet’s booking and activities are available on their social networks.
TYY Newsroom with information of lajornadamaya.mx
