Bee Safe

Bee Safe (2022-2023)

In 2022, BWB Colombia set out on a buzzing mission—to protect native bees, restore biodiversity, and teach the next generation why these tiny pollinators are kind of a big deal. With the help of a BWB MicroGrant, we launched Bee Safe, a conservation and community education project in Zipacón, Colombia, dedicated to repopulating stingless honey bees (angelitas), the unsung heroes of our ecosystem.

Our goal? To give 80,000 native bees a safe home in 40 artisanal hives, all while teaching kids and their families how to care for them. We partnered with rural schools to build meliponaries—clusters of 10 beehives each—so that students could experience hands-on beekeeping while learning about conservation. Schools like Laguna Verde Rural School became living labs, where kids (and their parents) got up close and personal with these gentle pollinators, realizing just how vital they are to Colombia’s forests and crops.

But Bee Safe wasn’t just about the bees—it was about community, education, and giving people a reason to care.Through workshops, storytelling, and direct engagement with families, we made sure the importance of native pollinators wasn’t just a lesson in school, but a movement that extended beyond the classroom.

By 2023, mission accomplished! Thanks to another win for a BWB Microgrant, our program successfully expanded into four schools, installed dozens of hives, and set the foundation for lasting environmental stewardship in the region. Bee Safe may have culminated, but its impact lives on—through thriving bee colonies, empowered students, and a community that now sees the world through a pollinator’s eyes. 

Bee Safe is a conservation, repopulation, and community education project in Zipacon, Colombia, that aims at creating a propitious habitat for bee colonies spread among 40 artisanal hives in which 80,000 native specimens can thrive. This program will expand an ongoing program of hands-on youth education and bee-keeping into an additional four schools in the region.