Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world. And a crop with a lot of manual labor in growing, pollinating, harvesting and curing.

Vanilla flowers contain male and female organs. A thin membrane separates the flower’s stigma from its rostello and therefore needs to be lifted by hand while the flower is gently pressed to pollinate it. This delicate operation is carried out in the early hours of the morning from the end of March to the beginning of May. For each large cluster of flowers, no more than 5-10 flowers should be pollinated, since the fewer green vanilla pods formed, the longer the vanilla pods can be. A fresh vanilla bean is fleshy and light green, grows up to 15 to 25 centimeters long and contains thousands of small seeds.

But even then vanilla is far from ready to emit its unique aroma for ice creams, desserts and perfumes, since green vanilla beans do not possess any aroma yet… but this is a story in itself.

Here we like to share a video in slow motion to show you how manual pollination is done in Mexico.

But we also have a natural pollinator living nearby – the melipona bee, for example.