We are Olaya and Mario Pérez, a brother and sister team very proud to be the third generation in our family of beekeepers in Asturias. We are here because honey has always been a part of our lives. When we were children, we looked forward to the summer, because it meant harvesting honey, and that is when we were the happiest, surrounded by nature and animals.
Olaya miel: beekeeping
and tradition
in Asturias
what makes
our honey
special?
Olaya Miel is the result of uniting tradition, experience, innovation, and a love for nature. We come from a line of beekeepers, and the origin of our family company lies in Artesanos de Cuevas, which began in Felechosa, in the municipality of Aller. Our family’s hard work and commitment made this business a pioneering company in Asturias and in Spain. Their traditional methods, open-door philosophy, and clear passion for beekeeping and nature have led many entrepreneurs to follow in their footsteps.
OLAYA MIEL, at the time Artesanos de Cuevas, was the first to produce monofloral honeys and to employ transhumance in Asturias. In addition, we introduced the production of creamed honey in the region.
Trashumancia
¿Sabes cuál es el secreto para conseguir que nuestro sabor, nuestro aroma y nuestra textura sean diferentes al resto de mieles del mercado? Sin duda, una de las características de Olaya Miel es utilizar flores de distintas zonas de la región y, para esto, movemos nuestras colmenas por varias zonas de Asturias. Con la trashumancia de nuestras abejas conseguimos las distintas mieles. Y, además, estamos muy orgullosos de haber sido los primeros en llevar a cabo esta técnica en Asturias.
The philosophy of
Olaya Miel
We are pioneers in monofloral honeys and in the use of transhumance in Asturias, and we take pride in that, but also, and above all, in showing the fruits of our work philosophy and respect for nature. We believe that to devote oneself to this profession and achieve a quality product like ours, one must feel this respect and passion for the environment.
To manage production from an eco-friendly perspective means upholding certain principles of sustainability in the practice of our profession. We must care for the well-being of animals, conserve natural resources, foster biodiversity, and know our place in this environment.
We are passionate about beekeeping and nature, and we conduct educational projects and workshops to raise awareness of the importance of caring for and respecting bees. We believe Asturian honey is as unique as our idyllic region. Its flavor is unparalleled and comes, in part, from the landscapes, native forests, and climate of Asturias.
Honey from Asturias
Sea and mountain
honey
We view the well-being and proper handling of our hives as primary. The geography of Asturias gives rise to unique honeys that are highly valued in domestic and international markets, but achieving this excellence is not easy. At Olaya Miel, we look for unpolluted settings far from intensive farming and freeways. In addition, we practice transhumance to obtain monofloral honeys and make the most of the many resources available to us in the different regions of Asturias. This is the richness of our home: the sea, the mountains, and a wide variety of vegetation. Thus, we harvest honey in three different regions: the center, the coast, and the high mountains.
What does it mean to harvest honey using natural methods?
We do not use chemicals that may leave residues in the hives, and we do not feed them artificially. That is, we do not harvest all of the honey; we leave the bees enough to get through the winter.
Bears in our
environment
At Olaya Miel, we are fortunate to be able to produce our honey in such a privileged setting. In fact, there are even wild animals living there, such as bears.
To create a purer honey without residues, we place our hives in the heart of nature, and this means we must coexist with the native fauna. To our daily tasks is added the search for equilibrium between the natural environment and the effect our presence may cause in it.
The bear is not only a symbol of our environment; we have also made it our trademark and a sign of our identity. We know they were here before we were, so we have learned to coexist with them and respect their space.
