By Gary Scheirman | Director
This has been a busy quarter for us.
Thanks to your support we have had several accomplishments:
PURCHASES
an automatic filling machine to make the bottle filling easier and more hygenic.
a refractometer to test the honey for the percentage of water and sugar content to ensure it is always within expected ranges
a bottle printer to print the date of when the bottle was filled.
These pieces will allow the beekeepers to show guests the proper methods to making and bottling honey, and help explain why most honey in the US stores have been adulterated with water, corn syrup, or dyes to save on costs.
We have had the honey produced on Cozumel tested by independent lab to check for foreign chemical and it was determined our honey was free of them.
TRAINING
To preparing the staff for the job they have visited more than a dozen other beekeeping facilities on the Yucatan to learn more about the Beecheii and their behavior.
They have been awarded grants for five of our beekeeepers to attend an online Pollinator Steward Certification course hosted by a premier North American society, the Pollinator Partnership. Although it is focused on the apis melifora bee and not the melipona, our people will learn many principles of beekeeping as well as understand why most beekeepers in the world have no understanding of the melipona bee.
ALLIANCE
We have been contacting many people to seek if they would like to be part of an informal alliance to promote the Melipona Beecheii and help protect them.
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