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aiming to get printed beekeeping manuals into the hands of tec- nicos (agricultural specialists on coffee cooperatives) and then set up online forums where bee experts from different regions—say, Mexico's Chiapas and Guatemala's Antigua—can share ideas. "The way beekeepers learn is by talking to other beekeepers, by looking over the fence and seeing what others are doing," says Caron, who has been researching Central American bee populations since the early 1980s. "On coffee cooperatives, though, there's not as much lateral communication as you might see here in the U.S." The project is beginning by focusing specifically on co-ops, as opposed to estates or small individual farms, both because Green Mountain has traditionally worked with those types of communities and because the general structure of co-ops allows for quick knowledge dissemination. Mares and Caron can hold training sessions with a co-op's tecnico, and that person will then be able to help hundreds of others develop a beekeeping prow- ess. "Co-ops also can often step up and help farmers pay for the equipment they need to start," says Caron. "And they can store the honey for a while, giving the producer some of the price now and then more down the road when it's sold." He adds that such price protection is important because, as in the coffee business, middlemen have been known to force low compensation num- bers on honey producers. Mares and Caron agree that their beekeeping-and-coffee push is reaching a critical juncture. Printed materials are now in many hands at origin, and Food4Farmers has drawn the support of Alfredo Contreras Orozco, a noted beekeeping expert in Mexico who is helping to get more co-ops in that country involved. According to Contreras Orozco, his biggest push right now involves educating more farmers about the possibilities of the process. "We want to make it known that coffee and honey are a beautiful pair," he says. Also, the larger goal of connecting beekeepers to work together on challenges such as distribution and honey quality is far from accomplished. "We've got to get over the hump and see if people will actually give up some secrets," says Mares. "In six months, I'd like to get 12 or 15 groups on our Web site talking about raising queens or how they divide their time between coffee and honey." : hile bees can clearly help lift farmers through the sale of honey and other products, the insects are also proving to be helpful on the actual coffee-production side of the equation. The connection between pollinating bees and stronger coffee yields was first documented a decade ago by David W. Roubik of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Roubik's research focused on a high-elevation section of a Panama coffee farm where honeybees were naturally present. Half of the trees were covered with fine-mesh material that prevented bees from reaching the plants, while the other half remained open. The study's results showed that the trees the bees could access showed a "yield benefit" of 56 percent. The sta- tistic reflected the fact that bee-pollinated plants produced more cherries than those that were not touched by the insects and that the fruit on pollinated plants tended to be heavier. continued on page 40 Fresh Cup Magazine 39