La Colmena

La Colmena sits at about 1,880 m in the northern Mixteca of Oaxaca, just over a kilometre from the town of San Simón Zahuatlán, the seat and largest locality of the municipality of the same name. It is the fifth largest of the municipality's 12 localities. It had 73 residents in 2005, 254 in 2010 and 379 in the 2020 census (185 women and 194 men), living in about 40 homes.

The community is almost entirely indigenous: in 2020 every resident was counted as indigenous and about 82% spoke an indigenous language, here Mixtec (tu'un savi); around 14% spoke only that language and no Spanish. Nearly all homes have electricity and piped water (97.5%) and roughly three in four have a mobile phone, but none had home internet. Download maps beforehand and tell people when you are coming if you plan to look someone up.

Other hamlets lie within two kilometres: Barrio Juquilita, Guadalupe Sabino, Tierra Colorada and Cinco de Mayo, so La Colmena is one part of a cluster of neighbourhoods rather than an isolated village. The climate is cool and fairly dry, about 18 °C on average with some 700 mm of rain a year.

The municipality is known for its poverty and for two handcrafts: sewing rubber balls and weaving palm hats, both paid very little. Corn and groceries come largely from Huajuapan de León. No hotels or restaurants are listed in the village: this is a place to visit with respect, asking before photographing people.