Projects around the world
Slow Food has created 21 Presidia linked to bees in 11 different countries. These concrete projects may protect a particular honey or other bee product, or a certain bee species or subspecies:
- Arusha Stingless Bee Honey
- Bacia do Jacuípe Mandaçaia Bee
- Belgian Black Bee
- Bore Honey
- Cingagoler Honey from Cerana Bees
- High Mountain Honeys
- Hyblaean Mountains Thyme Honey
- L’Aquila Apennine Honeys
- Macedonian Honeybee
- Mato Grande Jandaíra Bee
- Ogiek Honey
- Ponente Ligure Black Bee
- Puebla Sierra Norte Native Bees Honey
- Rira Honey
- Sateré-Mawé Canudo Bees
- Sicilian Black Bee
- Swiss Black Bee
- Tigray White Honey
- Wenchi Volcano Honey
- Wichi Wild Honey
- Yucatán Peninsula Xunankab Bee Honey
The Presidia related to stingless bees (or Melipona bees) are found in Brazil (Bacia do Jacuípe Mandaçaia Bee, Mato Grande Jandaíra Bee, and Sateré-Mawé Canudo Bees – Slow Food Brazil has carried out interesting research on Melipona bees), in Tanzania (Arusha Stingless Bee Honey), and in Mexico (Puebla Sierra Norte Native Bees Honey and Yucatán Peninsula Xunankab Bee Honey).
Meliponiculture, the keeping of stingless bees, is a very important activity for many indigenous peoples and rural communities who have developed special techniques for managing these bees. For a long time, stingless bee honey was used both as a medicine and as a food on long journeys. The traditional honey harvesting practices of these communities are linked to an intimate knowledge of the native bees and their relationship with humans and the environment.
The Ark of Taste (a catalogue of endangered traditional food products, breeds, and varieties nominated by members the Slow Food network around the world) contains 85 honeys, other bee products, and various bee species and subspecies. In 2019, Tapoa honey from Burkina Faso became the 5,000th product to board the Ark of Taste.
Slow Food created the project Bee the Future in collaboration with Arcoiris and Eataly, with the objective of sowing at least 100 hectares of land in Italy with a mixture of flowers that will attract bees. This project seeks to restore plant biodiversity in areas that have been over-exploited in order to extract high yields. It provides farmers and landowners with buckwheat, Alexandrian clover, coriander, phacelia, flax, mustard, sulla, arugula, sunflower, and crimson clover seeds.
The project involves farmers from all over Italy, particularly in intensively cultivated areas, such as those destined for corn monocultures in Piedmont, the Prosecco wine region in Veneto, parts of the Po Plain where cattle are raised intensively, and hazelnut monocultures in Lazio.