Colmena Fest Returns May 20–23 — 35 Beekeepers, 4,000 Visitors, a Lot of Honey
Cuenca Expat Staff
Cuenca's honey crowd has a date. The third edition of Colmena Fest 2026 runs May 20–23, set up along Padre Aguirre, between the Plaza de las Flores and San Francisco — right in the heart of the historic center.
What It Is
35 beekeepers (apicultores) will set up stands selling and showcasing "productos derivados de la colmena" — everything that comes out of a hive: honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, beeswax products, and the increasingly creative things people make from all of it. Organizers expect approximately 4,000 visitors across the four days.
There's a competitive element too. Vendors compete in three categories:
- Mejor Stand (Best Stand)
- Producto Innovador (Most Innovative Product)
- Producto Estrella (Star Product)
The event is organized with the city; Marisol Peñaloza, Cuenca's vice-mayor, is among the officials behind it.
Why Expats Should Care
Three practical reasons:
- Real local honey is genuinely hard to source well. Supermarket honey in Ecuador is often cut or mislabeled. A festival with 35 producers competing on quality is the single best day of the year to find the real thing and meet the person who made it.
- It's free, central, and four days long. No tickets, no reservations. You can drop in on a lunch break or make an afternoon of it.
- The "innovative product" category is where it gets interesting — honey-based skincare, fermented honey drinks, propolis tinctures. Cuenca's beekeepers have been getting ambitious.
Bring cash and small bills. Bring your own bag. Taste before you buy — that's the whole point of having 35 of them in one place.
Source: El Mercurio
