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Beekeeping as a livelihood.
May 28
Written by Paul Mauer（https://www.maddox.foundation/field-notes?author=59962cbed482e9b722d7ebac）
In a region where the most common threats to the forest are the ones born of need — clearing land to farm, cutting timber to sell, hunting to get by — beekeeping offers something rare: an income that depends on the forest staying intact. A healthy hive needs healthy, flowering forest around it, which means a beekeeper's livelihood and the land's protection point in the same direction.
The payoff runs in more than one direction: beekeepers earn from honey and wax, neighboring farms see better yields from the pollination, and the forest gains a community with a direct, practical reason to keep it standing.
That’s why the Maddox Foundation trains local beekeepers in the forests around Samlaut, who produce between 800 and 1,500 liters of honey a year. In 2025, they produced 1,392 liters of honey.
But that number is only part of the picture. Through late 2025 and into 2026, our beekeepers made a deliberate choice: rather than extract as much honey as possible, they prioritized building up their colonies first.
The result was a near-doubling of hives, from 40 in September 2025 to 90 by January 2026.
The program has also grown more self-sufficient. Beekeepers now make their own beeswax foundation sheets — 600 sheets from 20 kilograms of wax — cutting a recurring cost that used to depend on outside suppliers.