- Luis Mari Intza, a well-known driver of apitherapy and beekeeping in Gipuzkoa, has died in Tolosa at the age of 84. Besides personally knowing the remedies based on bee products throughout the world, he also created links with professionals from all over the world, some of whom came to Euskal Herria. Thanks to its impetus, ARGIA translated and published Julio César's book "Erlea seguro sendagile", one of the reference apiterapia manuals.
Born in Oñati, Intza developed much of his professional career in the cooperative world, becoming the head of an industrial cooperative of Tolosaldea. He then dedicated himself to the transformation of the economy, managing a nursery of rabbits in the primary sector and encouraging coordination in this field. In politics, he was a councillor of Herri Batasuna in Tolosa, a town where he militated next to the Abertzale left.
The other passion of action was bees. Besides having his own beehive, he worked for many years within the Association of Beekeepers of Gipuzkoa. Lover of bees and beekeepers, has been one of the pioneers in the Basque Country in knowing, researching and disseminating the values that bees have to attend to human health. In search of information and relations he crossed the sea on more than one occasion – always accompanied by his wife Maritxu Lazkano – as well as Argentina and organized a network of contacts with leading professionals in this field in Europe and, above all, in Latin America. These are Argentinian doctors Julio César Díaz and Hugo Agirre, and Dr. Teresa Giral, one of those responsible for bee products in Cuba. Through the act, many interested Basques have managed to contact experts in apitherapy from all over the world.
In recent years, I had worked a lot on the small bee, that is, to return to the lesser extent that bees were wild without human intervention – about 4.9 millimeters, rather than the 5.1-5.4 millimeters that today are measured by the manipulations of the last century and a half – so that the bee will be healthier and stronger. Along the same path as many other famous beekeepers around the world – Ed and Dee Lusby, Michael Bush, Stephan Braun…–, Intza a dozen years ago with another Guipuzkoan historical beekeeper, Joxe Leunda, from Legazpia. They had just taken the first steps in writing to take stock of their trajectory over the last twelve years.
As a man of great initiative, Intza also participated in various historical studies. One of its fruits was the construction, evaluation and conclusions of the Northern Railroad, published by Pello Joxe Aranburu on the construction of the Northern Railroad in Gipuzkoa, which Urko Apaolaza extensively commented on in ARGIA.