Buzzing project: Slovenia, PHL tap stingless bees

NATIVE stingless bees are emerging as unlikely champions of biodiversity, food security, and women’s empowerment, as the Embassy of Slovenia in Manila and Filipino bee advocates launch a livelihood project that blends ecological science with grassroots economic development.

- By MALOU TALOSIG-BARTOLOME

The initiative, unveiled on World Bee Day on May 20, seeks to commercialize the highly medicinal honey produced by stingless bees while training rural women in Camarines Norte to become beekeepers and entrepreneurs.

The project is a collaboration between the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia, Project Bee Inspired Corp. (PBI), and the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) Bee Program.

A global day, a local pilot

WORLD Bee Day, declared by the United Nations in 2017 upon Slovenia's initiative, is meant to highlight the indispensable role of bees and other pollinators in ecosystems.

“Bees are indicators of the health of nature. They are crucial for food security and biodiversity,” Slovenian Ambassador to the Philippines Dr. Smiljana Knez said during the launch.

The Philippines, with its rich tropical biodiversity, is a natural setting for such advocacy. Labo, the largest municipality in Camarines Norte, was chosen as the pilot site due to its abundance of coconut farms and forest resources.

About 60 percent of Labo’s land is devoted to coconut cultivation, a crop heavily dependent on pollination.

“If the pollinators get wiped out, we're going to lose our coconut,” warned PBI president Anna A. Locsin.

Women at the center

THIRTEEN women from Labo have been selected to undergo a year-long training program led by UPLB researchers. The project deliberately aligns with the UN International Year of Woman Farmer 2026, which aims to spotlight rural women’s contributions to food security and close gender gaps in agriculture.

Locsin emphasized that women’s patience and meticulousness make them ideal beekeepers.