Collecting, keeping wild honeybees boosts coffee yield, adds new layer of agroecological stability

Workshop teaches Honduran mountain farmers natural pest control, organic fertility techniques to boost self-sufficiency, profits

Farmer Sixta Alonso with coffee seedlings. She looks forward to learning how to manage wild honeybees to improve yield from her coffee crop.

By Cheryl Miller
Posted March 31, 2010

Piedras Negras, Honduras—One of the first things you notice about the Piedras Negras landscape is the coffee  trees. They blanket the steep mountainsides of this remote, mist-covered village in Honduras, where road access is difficult and land ownership nearly nonexistent.  The second thing you notice about this community is the people: proud, resourceful, very gracious.
 
And enterprising. Since the people of Piedras Negras have little of their own land to farm and depend on the brief coffee harvest to provide income for the whole year, they've looked for local, low-input alternative enterprises to strengthen their livelihoods.

Recently, they've taken to capturing and keeping wild bees on a shared patch of land, both to improve coffee yields and produce honey.  Coffee plants are capable of self-pollination, so for a long time researchers did not think insects made much difference to the crop. But studies show that when bees pollinate coffee plants, yields can increase by more than 50 percent. Now these villagers are looking for more extensive training so this project can provide them the greatest benefit possible

Sharing bee knowledge

Supporting them in learning more about bees is Sustainable Harvest International (SHI)—
a Maine-based non-profit which has been promoting sustainable agriculture in farming communities throughout Central America since 1997. It is leading a training in May when it holds its first beekeeping workshop in El Cerron, Honduras, a community where farmers have some experience in beekeeping already that they are eager to share.

SHI’s local field trainers work as agriculture extension agents, providing hands-on training to more than 650 Honduran families in rural mountainous communities.  In addition to this, the SHI-Honduras program has 321 families who have graduated, demonstrating leadership in sustainable farming practices that restore the environment while improving quality of living in their communities.

Small-scale organic coffee growers in Piedras Negras depend on revenue from that crop for most of their annual income, so learning how to use bees to boost yields is a significant step.

The beekeeping workshop will provide the region’s farmers with hands-on training in how to establish integrated, organic apiculture (honeybee management) systems on their lands.  SHI staff and trained apiculturists will work side by side with local farmers to learn beehive design, honey and pollen extraction, crop planting techniques to better attract bees and other pollinators, and overall marketing strategies for extra income.  

Natural pest management

Residents will also learn natural pest management and organic fertilizer techniques-- particularly important given the spread of Colony Collapse Disorder, which has destroyed bee hives  around the globe. Agricultural pesticides  are increasingly being implicated, along with viral diseases, in the growing problem. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is named in a lawsuit demanding exploration of how two classes of pesticides may be harming honeybees.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), bee pollination is worth $15 billion to U.S. farmers and orchardists each year. Along with other pollinating animals, such as bats, birds and butterflies, bees fertilize as much as 80 percent of the world's food supply while they collect nectar from flowering plants, a function that is vital for plant reproduction and food production.   But declines in the health and population of pollinators in North America and globally pose what could be a significant threat to the integrity of biodiversity, to global food webs, and to human health. 

Such practices as crop spraying, moving bees thousands of miles to pollinate commercial crops, artificially inseminating queens, and sugar water feeding are all thought to contribute to a general weakening of the constitution of the honeybee.  SHI will provide families with training in alternative techniques that attract beneficial wildlife by planting flowering border crops, leaving wild spaces and protecting nearby watershed areas.  These techniques ensure the health of pollinating wildlife and restore the environment, while providing the families with nutritious food and marketable crops.

Beekeeping is not new to Central America; it’s has been practiced there for hundreds of years. Mayans were known for their skill in bee husbandry with the varieties of stingless bees that are native to the area. Though the technologies for harvesting honey were different—Mayans procured their honey from the hollow logs that the bees inhabited—the ways they used honey have remained the same.  They used honey as a sweetener and also as a cure for a range of ailments, mainly respiratory problems, much like today.

True to SHI’s mission to increase sustainability through organic techniques and systems, the long-term value of organic honey is invaluable to the farmers it trains today. This is particularly true in Piedras Negras, who are struggling to subsist on their meager earnings from coffee harvests.

Says Mercedes Maria Peña, a field staff member of Sustainable Harvest - Honduras: "The beekeeping projects decrease families' vulnerability to poverty by providing them with a sustainable livelihood.  All our work is framed in the interests of families and the protection of the environment, using organic land management techniques to ensure the health of the communities and the local environment."

Cheryl Miller serves on the outreach committee of Sustainable Harvest International.

About Sustainable Harvest International: Founded in 1997 by returned Peace Corps volunteer Florence Reed, SHI provides training and materials to Central American farmers, promoting organic and sustainable agriculture techniques as an alternative to slash and burn agriculture.  To date SHI-affiliated projects have planted more than 2.6 million trees and converted more than 12,000 acres to sustainable uses, thereby saving over 45,000 acres from slash-and-burn destruction.