More than 40 coffee growers and farmers participated in an educational event at Casa Pueblo.
While many fear a painful encounter with their sting, others — accustomed to the hard work of producing food from the land — recognize and seek to benefit from the contribution of bees to coffee production, particularly shade-grown coffee, aware of the value of their pollination services in what was once one of Puerto Rico’s most important industries.
With that in mind, more than 40 coffee growers, beekeepers, farmers, and agronomists from 18 municipalities recently participated in a conference organized by the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and Florida International University (FIU) — with collaboration from Arecibo C3, the new initiative born from the former Arecibo Observatory — where they explored how bee pollination contributes to coffee production and, in turn, to the food security of an archipelago that imports more than 80% of the food it consumes.
“Basically, we are trying to bring science to the people,” said Dr. Tugrul Giray, a member of the Arecibo C3 research team. “In Puerto Rico, we have a situation of dependency on imported food. By strengthening agriculture and bringing bees into production through pollination, we may achieve greater food security. That is the main reason bees are important — they provide pollination for nearly 80% of plants.”
During the gathering, held at Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, participants received workshops on the ideal locations for placing beehives — about 50 meters from coffee plantations and close to water sources, according to Dr. Giray — as well as proper tree-pruning techniques for shade-grown coffee production, among other topics. Later, they visited Casa Pueblo’s La Olimpia Coffee Farm, where they put their knowledge into practice.
Participants — from towns such as Cabo Rojo, Lares, Utuado, Adjuntas, San Lorenzo, and Río Grande — also spent part of the event learning about the Puerto Rican bee, scientifically known as gAHB or the gentle Africanized honey bee. This hybrid and unique species in Puerto Rico is relatively docile and resistant to parasites and diseases that affect bees in warm climates worldwide. According to experts, these characteristics could make it a key solution for reversing global bee population decline.
It is estimated that the impact of Hurricane María in September 2017 caused the loss of around 80% of the bee population across the archipelago. In response to that alarming scenario, legislation amended the Pollinator Protection and Preservation Law in 2020 to declare the local bee part of Puerto Rico’s natural heritage.
Shade-grown coffee is cultivated under the protection of trees and contributes to biodiversity conservation and soil health. Bees are essential in this process, as their pollination is estimated to increase productivity by more than 20% and improve bean quality.
“The recommendation is to place one hive per cuerda (a local land measurement), with a distance of two kilometers between apiaries, because bees can travel up to one kilometer for pollination,” explained Giray, a professor at UPR.
Among those attending the educational event was Natalia Serrano, a 26-year-old agronomy student at the UPR Mayagüez Campus. Serrano, who is a certified beekeeper, grows coffee — along with citrus fruits such as oranges and lemons, plantains, and bananas — on her parents’ farm in Castañer. She shared that about three years ago they began planting shade trees as part of their transition to this cultivation method.
“I think these workshops should continue, and we need to keep educating the population — not just a limited group, but bringing more awareness to rural areas and schools, increasing visibility. I think this type of initiative is wonderful,” she emphasized.
Casa Pueblo provided the ideal setting for the event, as the community self-management project maintains a coffee plantation next to the La Olimpia School Forest, where the Río Grande de Arecibo originates. Coffee production is not new to Casa Pueblo, which launched Café Madre Isla in 1989, though shade cultivation is a more recent step.
Axel Massol Deyá, Casa Pueblo’s liaison in the collaboration with Arecibo C3, acknowledged that the idea of having bees on the farm initially caused concern due to the possibility of stings, but that changed once they understood the benefits. Soon, he said, they plan to move a hive identified in the forest to the coffee plantation.
“For the first time, we are going to have a beehive in the coffee farm. In Cerro Mágico, in the camping area, we have another hive that we plan to move to the plantation,” he said. “Casa Pueblo always learns from academia and from the knowledge of people who are not here in the day-to-day operations. This experience has been wonderful because we can expand our knowledge and change our management practices at the coffee farm.”