Bees are propagated not mainly for a harvest of their honey, but for their crucial role to the entire production of crops that form part of human diet, which ensure food security.

This is what a group of beekeepers in Cebu has buzzed about through their hobby and advocacy, and a national conference set in August 2025 in Cebu City.

For example, the group has nurtured stingless bees, locally called “kiyot.”

A mini forest in Sitio Latid, Barangay Bato, Toledo City, midwest Cebu has become a vast food basket for a variety of bees, including the tiny hardworking "kiyot."

Bees perform their regular duty of collecting nectar from all sorts of vegetation, and deposit the nectar at their hive of over 10 boxes at a bee farm in Toledo City owned by bee-nurturing enthusiast, Bernice Romualdez Ocampo.

Ocampo gets support from other beekeepers who have about three decades of experience.

In a tour, the veteran beekeepers – Alberto Bartolata, Patricia Jubay Paradero, Oliver Patlingrao, among others, showed how to remove frames from specialized boxes without hurting, or disturbing, a single bee among colonies.

Swarms of bees in frames, some of them locally referred to as “ligwan,” work for their queen bee day in and day out before their life is over. 

The beekeepers showed specialized structures on the hind legs of bees called pollen baskets or corbiculae. These baskets are used to collect and transport pollen back to the hive. The pollens resemble yellow corn grits but with a powdery texture.

The bee pollens, according to beekeeper Alberto Bartolata, is highly nutritious, providing essential minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and with zero calories.

Frames of bees wax were harvested, the honey extracted with the use of a manual extractor.

Tiny stingless bees called "kiyot" produce pollen and honey using indigenous material such as bamboo for a hive.

What is produced is a sour, tangy kind of honey, Ocampo said, that is more valued for its natural antibiotic and healing properties.

Ocampo said that bees are among natural pollinators that ensure bountiful harvest when nurtured and propagated properly.

“Bees are the most fascinating thing, as always I say - no bees, no food - because of pollination to food security, because of their importance to the environment, to biodiversity,” Ocampo underscored. 

From August 21 to 23, 2025, beekeepers in Cebu will converge for the 29^th Beenet (Beekeepers Network Philippine Foundation) National Conference, and for the 30^th Founding Anniversary of the cooperative.

About 200 participants from all over the country are expected, Bartolata said.

“Participants will include researchers, academicians, hobbyists, entrepreneurs," he added. 

The event will be held at the Cebu Technological University in Cebu City.