Beekeeping in Quintana Roo: Challenges and Hopes

Jonathan Lorenzo Reyes's only hive seems lonelier when looking at the vastness that surrounds it. The modest honey-producing colony that this 10-year-old beekeeper cares for in his backyard is situated in the middle of a monoculture of 35,500 hectares of sugarcane, over which tons of fertilizers and pesticides are sprayed. Fire, chemicals, and deforestation threaten the survival of bees, one of the most important pollinators in the world, in the sugarcane area of Quintana Roo.