AFP, published on Friday, July 22, 2022 at 20:08
Luiz Lustosa lifts the lid of a wooden box and immediately thousands of bees emerge from small wax craters, forming a buzzing cloud around him.
“Wonderful!” said the 66-year-old AFP official, who spends his free time raising local bees, whose honey is increasingly in demand in gourmet cuisine, but also in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.
Mr. Lustosa wears only a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and a hat with a veil to protect his face.
Because native bees (“meliponids”) have no sting and live together with humans without any problems. They play a big role in protecting the environment, and that impresses Luiz Lustosa.
Luiz Lustosa, President of the Abelha Nativa (Native Bee) Institute in Brasilia, fell in love with the reproduction of six species when he, along with other researchers, realized that they were in the process of “extinction”.
“But it wasn’t just the bees, it was all of nature,” he says.
“We explain to the children that these bees do not sting, that they are necessary for the environment and nature and that they are there to help us,” says Mr. Lustosa, who is being interviewed at the institute, where he organizes workshops on reproduction bees and sells local honey.
– Untapped potential –
Although interest in these bees has increased during the Covid pandemic – individuals have started keeping them at home – native bees remain a little-known treasure in Brazil, which has a large number of species.
Jatai, uruçu, mandaçaia, mandaguari… Of the 550 species of stingless bees identified worldwide – always in tropical or subtropical countries – 250 were found in Brazil, according to Cristiano Menezes, head of the research and development department of the public body Embrapa ( Brazilian Agricultural Research Society).
On farms, growers rely heavily on native bees to pollinate crops such as pears or avocados, among other things, to improve yield.
But this honey, long known to the indigenous tribes and considered purer and healthier (it has a low glycemic index and bees only feed on flowers and fruits), is also beginning to interest gastronomy.
The honey of these bees, which vary in taste and acidity depending on the species, is more expensive and sought after than that of sting bees, which produce up to 30 times more.
If a kilo of honey from an African bee (with a sting) sells for almost six euros, that of a native bee is exchanged for almost 55 euros.
“Bees enable companies to have a positive impact on society, the environment and agriculture,” summarizes Mr. Menezes.
– “A rich world like that of wine” –
Native bees were forgotten during the colonization of America.
The Jesuits are said to have introduced African bees, which were more popular in the early 19th century for making candles because of their thick wax.
Unlike these, meliponids do not feed on sugary leftover food, only native trees. Planting fruit trees is therefore as important to the honey farmer as insect breeding.
“They are dependent on the vegetation, on the forest. That’s why these beekeepers are conservationists,” Jeronimo Villas-Boas, an ecologist and beekeeper in Sao Paulo, told AFP.
Mr. Villas-Boas is trying to increase honey production so that this product, which is “consumed by different populations” such as the indigenous tribes and the descendants of slaves, can “make a trade” out of it.
Among his clients: the renowned Brazilian chef Alex Atala from the DOM restaurant in Sao Paulo, two Michelin stars. Fascinated by the honey of local bees, he put it on his menu.
This is the “most entertaining part of the menu,” Mr Atala told AFP in the kitchen of the restaurant in the chic Jardins district: a piece of cassava cooked in milk, drizzled with honey of the Brazilian Tubi variety, is offered between the main course and dessert.
“We have such a rich world to discover as that of wine,” marvels the starred chef.