He grew up in Athens, in the Ampelokipoi district. He grew up in Athens, in the Ampelokipoi district. He loved playing basketball and he never missed an opportunity to spend his summer vacations in his mother’s village, Planitero in Achaia.

“I still remember all those days when we’d play in the village streets until nightfall. I remember my grandmother looking for me, and my grandfather giving me a sidelong glance when I’d return home, without saying much.” We met beekeeper Vasilis Koutroulakis and stepped into a wondrous world – the universe of bees.

Choosing life in the village

Back in 2001, he decided to leave Athens behind, wanting to build the foundations to start his own family away from the big city. His goal was to provide both himself and his future family with a high quality of life.

Before that, however, he studied at the Technical School of Anavrita where, on a whim, he chose to enroll in the Department of Apiculture instead of Floriculture, a sector with which his extended family already had a connection. “I come home and tell my mom that I’ve chosen beekeeping. She looks at me, puzzled. I get an earful, and then things take their course!”

Family and his love for bees

After finishing school, there was only one path forward. What he had probably always wanted – to live in the village permanently – was becoming reality in the best possible way. Even though he had graduated from beekeeping school, he was not yet a beekeeper.

“It was the invaluable help of two locals from the village that truly made me a beekeeper,” he says as we are following an uphill dirt road to get to some beehives he has set up near his grandfather’s old shed. There, we learn how the last 20 years of his life have unfolded. Together with his wife Panagiota, a kindergarten teacher, they have two children, Georgia and Dimitris, and all of them share a profound love for bees.