Beekeeping with Indigenous People in the Amazon

In communities along the rivers of Loreto, Magnolia is becoming a familiar face. As a beekeeping promoter, she travels through the region teaching people to tend stingless bees as part of the itinerant native bee school.

Magnolia was drawn to beekeeping after seeing a neighbor sell honey from hives he tended. She came to the program ready to learn, and she hasn't stopped since. Over the last seven years, she and her family expanded their efforts and now tend 23 colonies in their front yard below mango and lemon trees.

She didn't stop at keeping bees. Four years ago, through this program, she began learning to teach. In leading workshops, Magnolia draws on her own beekeeping misadventures as teaching moments, turning mistakes into lessons with humor and honesty. Her students leave having learned as much from what went wrong as from what went right.

Today, Magnolia earns income running beekeeping workshops throughout Loreto and regularly leads sessions for tourists at the local lodge. She has taught in over 15 communities, leaving behind the groundwork for hundreds more sustainably managed hives.

Magnolia is now building a third layer of skills through training with OnePlanet. She and the other promoters are learning to write reports, design programs, conduct evaluations, and more. These skills position them to comprehensively lead beekeeping initiatives on their own terms.

Beekeeping is only part of who she is. Magnolia is also a farmer, a mother, and a skilled palm fiber artist, carrying forward a traditional craft deeply rooted in local culture. When other organizations were looking for someone to teach palm fiber embroidery techniques, they needed not only an artist, but someone who could demonstrate, guide, and inspire. Magnolia, of course, was exactly that person. The confidence she had built as a beekeeping promoter had made her into a skilled educator, ready to share the knowledge she carries.

Her daughter, she says, wants to grow up to be just like her.

We are thrilled to share that our beekeeping initiative has entered a transformative new phase: the birth of our Peer-to-Peer Mentorship Program. This quarter, we launched a series of intensive workshops to begin training a new cohort of "Promoters", or local leaders dedicated to spreading sustainable meliponiculture (stingless beekeeping) throughout their communities and beyond.

For beekeepers already practiced in the technical aspects of hive management and honey harvesting, these workshops focused heavily on leadership and community facilitation. The most inspiring aspect of these workshops is that the teaching was led by our very first class of project graduates! Our veteran promoters helped the new cohort gain confidence in public speaking and engagement practices, strengthening their interpersonal tools to support new capacity builders through the challenges of starting to work with native bees. By prioritizing these peer-to-peer skills alongside technical training, we are building a resilient network of advocates who can protect the Amazon’s pollinators for years to come.

Voices from the Field

One of our new promoters, Lesley, shared her perspective on the transition to educator:

“I'm excited to become a promoter to teach in other communities. As a beekeeper, I know how to raise bees and harvest honey, so I want to teach in other places. I liked the workshop because I am learning so much from the trainers”. 

Wilson, one of our original promoters who began training years ago, shared his experience with the incoming cohort:

“At first I was nervous about speaking in front of others. Now I'm more confident, and when I go to other communities to teach workshops, I'm already prepared. As a promoter I’ve learned to speak in public, give hands-on lessons, design capacity building workshops, write reports, and manage activity funds.” Wilson is passing on his knowledge to grow the team of local educators.

To date, our original group of 8 promoters has trained and empowered more than 30 communities in 7 river basins in collaboration with 7 different institutions! With this budding new cohort of 10 additional promoters, we expect that impact to increase long into the future. Thank you for standing with us and the beekeepers! Your support makes this chain of knowledge possible!