Loyola Apikilti is a student group at St Ignace de Loyola school, in the rural community of Bedou, near the city of Wanament in Northeastern Haiti. We are learning the beekeeping trade, along with many other things, in our school apiary.

St Ignace de Loyola school is part of the Foi et Joie, a movement for transformative education. The sisters of the Company of Mary Our Lady are in charge of the school.

One of the sisters, Sr. Carmen Rodríguez, odn, who is from Chile, is a master beekeeper. She accompanies us in this process.

Our region is known throughout Haiti for its honey, and there are many beekeepers in the area. For many of us, beekeeping is a family tradition.

Learning the trade at school is an opportunity for us to integrate what we learn in the apiary with what we learn in the classroom. We are also learning specialized techniques which allow us to improve the productivity of our hives without harming the bees. We take care of them, because they play an important role in the ecosystem and in food production.

We are happy to share what we are learning with other beekeepers, and with anyone who wants to get into beekeeping. That’s why we’re creating instructional videos where we show our best practices. These videos are available on our YouTube channel. We are also making beekeeping equipment, such as Langstroth hives, which are important for upgrading the local industry, but hard to find in the country. As we move forward, we want to move forward together with the Haitian beekeeping industry as a whole.

We sell our products, like honey and propolis extract, to help our school financially. That way, the school can continue to offer a quality education to all families in our community.