Beekeeper & apitourism pioneer
Eduardo Fernández
Business
Miel Montgó · Xàbia · Film: The Mountain in the Jar
Season
Season 1, Costa Blanca
Pillar
The Makers
Location
Montgó Natural Park, Costa Blanca
Beekeeper who made the slopes of Montgó Natural Park, above Xàbia, his life's work. His twenty hives of native heritage bees do more than make honey: they help protect the biodiversity of the mountain and its fifty-plus native plant species. Every harvest tells him how the landscape is doing, which flowers thrived and which disappeared.
Eduardo shares that knowledge openly, bringing visitors onto the mountain to see how pollination sustains everything around them. Through Miel Montgó, he links the culture of the place with the craft of beekeeping, keeping an ancient tradition alive and showing why it matters today.
Eduardo began in 2020, the spring when the whole world stopped. He spent it on an empty mountain, watching and listening. He still listens to a hive before he opens it, because the sound tells him how the season is going.
His bees fly up to three kilometres from home, so they cover almost the whole natural park. Whatever flowers, they visit. Rosemary gives a pale, quick honey. Thyme leaves a soft bitterness at the back of the throat. Every jar is a record of one year on the mountain. Eduardo can taste which wildflowers came back this spring, and which ones did not return.
He keeps his apiary small on purpose. Research on Mediterranean hillsides shows that too many hives end up competing for the same flowers, so he never goes above about thirty. Local businesses sponsor his hives, and the bees stay where they do the most good, pollinating the park.
Montgó rises 753 metres between Dénia and Xàbia. Around 650 plant species grow on its slopes, which makes it one of the richest mountains for plants in Europe. Some of them grow here and nowhere else in the world
When EU inspectors tested imported honey, nearly half of it was suspected of being mixed with cheap syrups. A jar from Eduardo tells you exactly which mountain and which spring it came from.
Gallery
Featured episode
Featured articles
See other Food Heroes
Summary
Beekeeper Eduardo Fernández has made the slopes of Montgó Natural Park, above Xàbia, his life's work. His twenty hives of native heritage bees do more than make honey: they help protect the biodiversity of the mountain and its fifty-plus native plant species. Every harvest tells him how the landscape is doing, which flowers thrived and which disappeared. Eduardo shares that knowledge openly, bringing visitors onto the mountain to see how pollination sustains everything around them. Through Miel Montgó, he links the culture of the place with the craft of beekeeping, keeping an ancient tradition alive and showing why it matters today.
Key Facts
- Business
- Miel Montgó · Xàbia · Film: The Mountain in the Jar
- Role
- Beekeeper & apitourism pioneer
- Location
- Montgó Natural Park, Costa Blanca
- Protected area
- Montgó Natural Park
- Pillar
- The Makers
- Produces
- Wildflower honey
- Protects
- Native heritage bee colonies; pollination of 650+ flora species on Montgó
- Scale
- 30 hives
- Practice
- Native heritage bees; each harvest read as a diagnosis of wildflower health
- Working since
- 2020
- Recognition
- Apitourism pioneer in the region
- SDG touchpoints
- Life on Land, Zero Hunger, Climate Action, Quality Education, Sustainable Cities and Communities
- Open to visitors
- Apitourism