A sweet venture

Bees perform the vital function of pollinating plants, ensuring that 30% of food production and 70% of plant life depend on this process. Four students from the University of Cundinamarca, seeing the danger this species faced, wanted to do something to protect it.

After a Beekeeping class with teacher Judith Castiblanco two years ago, Francy Rodríguez Farfán, Miguel Ángel Guerrero Casas, Yessica Abril López and Julián Gómez Gómez decided to take action to prevent bees from continuing to be killed in Ubaté and Lenguazaque Cundinamarca, where these young people reside.

“Many people, out of ignorance and fear, attacked them, burned them, and that's when we started to intervene. We prevented many of these things from happening, but we also thought about how we could create crops where they and other people would be safe,” explained Francy Rodríguez Farfán.

This is how AsoBee emerged, an association in which these students manage the installation of apiaries and thus collect their honey and pollen. "We protect the species and teach people how to live off them," explained the final semester student of Animal Science at UCundinamarca.

Francy says the road has not been easy, but she has had the knowledge and support of the University teachers who have encouraged and accompanied the four young people in this life project.

The Association was recently founded, and they are still going through some administrative procedures; however, they already have several apiaries installed with investments of around three million pesos. This cost is borne by the landowners, and the young people of AsoBee contribute their knowledge and labor.

Francy and her coworkers have made agreements to market the pollen; they have an agreement with the beekeeping companies Apiarrayanes and Apumundo, and they sell the honey door-to-door or to friends and acquaintances. However, they are working on sales plans because that is where the profitability of their business lies. "We reached an agreement with the people for whom we install the apiaries, and our profit is 501% of the sales of honey and pollen," explained the future animal scientist.

The beginning of a great journey

So far, Francy and her colleagues at AsoBee have installed eight apiaries in the municipalities that make up the Ubaté Valley; interested people contact them through the UCundinamarca Research Seedbed.

These young people are in the last semester of the Animal Science program, and they dream of continuing to protect the bee species, because they believe that by protecting them, they protect the ecosystem.

They will soon finish their thesis and continue with this sweet venture that allows them to generate money for themselves, protect the bees, generate income for the people of the region and start a great path in the business world.

More news from the Ubaté branch at the News Agency