Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/66983
, n the current coffee universe, plenty of programs aim to ensure the financial stability of producers. We've got fair trade, direct trade, microfinance and Cup of Excellence, to spout off just a few. But here's an unexpected concept to add to the list: beekeeping. Though honey, a café condiment-bar staple, tends to be asso- ciated with the consumption end of specialty beverages, the sticky-sweet product actually has a long history in many regions where Arabica is produced. Now a group of American beekeeping experts and coffee buyers is looking to help producers in Latin America more effective- ly integrate beekeeping into their operations so they'll have a reli- able alternative revenue stream. In addition, an expand- ing body of research is showing that the pres- ence of bees around cof- fee plants can help boost those trees' production yield (through pollina- tion) as well as foster a spirit of ecosystem awareness and protec- tion among farmers. Bees and coffee, it's becoming clear, are a match made in agricul- tural heaven, and that connection is just start- ing to get its due atten- tion from the American specialty community. "The sheer power of bees increases yield, bean size, and the strength and virility of the bean," says Ozo Coffee's Greg Lefcourt, who this April centered his United States Barista Championship routine around the ways bees benefited the Ecuadorian coffee he featured. "Bees create a greater harvest in every way, shape and form. The farmer, in turn, has more economic viability." Let's take a deeper look at how the interaction between coffee and bees has developed in recent decades—and why some observers see the duo as key to a sustainable future. 7 he first thing one should know about this subject is that coffee plants don't need bees to survive. Yes, flower- ing is a crucial first step in the development of healthy cherries, but the plants are self-pollinating, and coffee shrubs in many parts of the world thrive without ever getting a visit from the buzzing insects. times (long before the introduction of coffee), individuals took care of a stingless bee species native to the Western Hemisphere. Later they added European honeybees, imported by Spaniards in the 17th and 18th centuries. And in the last several decades, after some hesitation, Latin American farmers have found ways to profit from the infamously aggressive Africanized bees that have steadily moved up the continent since being imported to Brazil in 1956. Bees bring a variety of benefits to farmers. There's the honey, for one thing, which can be sold in towns close to the coffee fields as well as distributed into a more global supply chain. Bees also naturally collect a resin called propolis, a prized medicine for ail- ments including sore throats and colds. Bee venom is another har- vestable and saleable material, sought after for its anti-inflamma- tory properties. Finally, if a coffee farmer aims to also grow fruits continued on page 38 Fresh Cup Magazine 37 But that doesn't mean agriculturally minded folks in coffee regions have shied away from also keeping bees on their proper- ties. Bill Mares, a writer and beekeeper for 40 years in Vermont, visited a handful of coffee cooperatives in Mexico and Central America several years ago as part of a push to expand beekeep- ing worldwide. What he saw surprised him. "They knew the stuff already," says Mares. "I realized it would be presumptuous of me to tell them how to keep bees." For generations, coffee producers in many regions of Latin America have maintained bee colonies. Dating back to Mayan