The abiaresus of Alta Marmilla

Generations at work

From generation to generation

As for the company's hives, it' s a fictional story that begins with a village priest, Fausto Matzeu, a beekeeper of yesteryear. Picking up his legacy in 1917 was his pupil Luigi Olla, who will later be remembered for introducing modern moving-frame hives to the island. From these, to his daughter Verina, now in her nineties but still active around the hives. It is she who is in charge of the production of the archaic acquameli, an amber-colored concentrate made from honey, water and natural flavorings, which even harks back to the Nuragic age. And finally, since 1977, the third generation, Luigi Manias, who by paternal line descends from a dynasty of beekeepers with 150 hives documented as early as 1631.

At work in the hives

Identity, responsibility, quality

The picture this master has created around himself in his first 40 years of business gives substance to his reputation: 180 organically certified beehives, divided between the Ales countryside and Mt. Arci; a lapidary slogan-"identity, responsibility, quality"-and a production of 6 types of award-winning honey; a house-laboratory built of unfired clay bricks, according to the dictates of bio-architecture; a multimedia library that has become an international center of bee culture; an educational farm attended by volunteers from all over the world and a garden "that knows no hoe," as a laboratory of natural agriculture; a nonprofit association with a broad social spectrum, thanks to which, among other things, young people with mental disabilities are professionally initiated into beekeeping; not to mention what goes beyond honey.

Always looking ahead, because "tradition is a doing, not a suffering; it is a proceeding, not a staying. One does not inherit dead things. One inherits languages, myths, rituals, poetry, cultural and artistic heritage, customs and values."