How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat

In the mountains of northeast Peru, a group of women beekeepers have plucked millions of bees from the jaws of death and saved their own livelihoods with the help of UN climate funding.

The women not only rescued their hives from extreme weather events linked to climate change, but built a thriving honey business.

Chilal de la Merced, a village of some 800 souls perched at over 2,600 meters (8,500 feet) in the Andes, in Peru's Cajamarca region, has been battered in recent years by recurring heavy rains, droughts, frosts and hail storms linked to a changing climate and warming oceans.

The weather has played havoc with the bees' ability to forage for nectar and pollen.

In early 2022, the rains were so heavy that they didn't venture out of the hive at all, and began to starve.

"When we checked the hives, we found the boxes full of dead bees," Karina Villalobos, the 28-year-old spokeswoman for the Hojuelas de Miel (Honey Flakes) beekeepers association, recalled.

A year earlier, she and 14 other beekeepers applied for a grant from Avanzar Rural, a program founded by the Peruvian government and the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to help small-scale food producers in rural areas vulnerable to climate change.

It almost didn't work -- climate change doesn't wait for grant money, and even when funds arrive, projects take time to implement.

Months after they secured $27,000 in climate funding -- a topic that will be at the center of discussions at the COP29 climate conference in Baku next month -- they were staring ruin in the face.

"We asked ourselves, what are we going to do? If we don't take action, the bees will disappear, the project will collapse and our organization will fail," Villalobos said.

Around the world, bee populations are seen as a bellwether of healthy ecosystems but experts warn they are increasingly vulnerable to climate change as well as pesticide use and habitat loss.

Hojuelas de Miel decided to try to adapt to the changing weather cycles, which were disrupting flowering seasons -- hampering the ability of the bees to collect nectar and pollen.

To compensate for the bees' depleted food resources, the women fed them with a syrupy mix of sugar and vitamins.

But they also planned for the future.

Using the grant, they surrounded the hives in native plants and flowers, including arum lilies and coffee plants, that are more resistant to drought and rain.

"Today we are empowered and resilient women," Villalobos said proudly.