In the floral valleys of Cuba's Matanzas province, old-fashioned farming means bees can swarm without the threat of pesticides that have decimated populations across the world."The bee is made neither for urban areas nor rural areas. It is made for the mountains," says Rogelio Marcelo Fundora, surveying a lush mountain valley east of Havana where his bees are thriving.
But not in Cuba, a Communist-run island nation that has become a kind of apicultural paradise, thanks to the purity of its countryside. "There's no miracle, just a lot of work," said Santiago."It's endless work to change out the queen, select the bees," he said, his face tanned by many hours working under the sun.
Of the total, about 1,900 tonnes of Cuba's honey have been certified as organic honey, a"national record" said Dayron Alvarez, the director of technology and development at Apicuba. It pays up to $1,000 per tonne to beekeepers and sells honey at different prices depending on the country, which is not disclosed. Based on the most recent figures, from 2017, Cuba received an average of $2,655 per tonne for its honey abroad."Because of the tendency to use very little chemicals, we can say that the honey of Cuba is almost all organic honey," says Perez.