Beeworks

Beeworks is a Greenworks-sponsored project focusing on tropical stingless bee and agroecology education in the Vale do Ribeira region of São Paulo state, Brazil.

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About

Map inset with São Paulo state outlined thickly, the Vale do Ribeiro region in the south outlined an shaded in green, with a red line from Campinas in the central part of the state down to Guapiruvu in the Vale do Ribeira region starred. Additional important cities for the project are highlighted, including Sete Barras directly to the east of Guapiruvu and Iguape and Cananéia to the south on the coast.

Where is Vale do Ribeira?

Vale do Ribeira is located in the southern part of São Paulo state and extends into the nearby state of Paraná, Brazil, and encompasses the area around the Ribeiro de Iguape River.  It is among the poorest and least developed parts of the state and is home to 21% of what remains of the Atlantic Forest, an astounding tropical rain forest ecosystem.

We work with an existing network of extension projects that link together the agroforestry community of Guapiruvu, faculty and students at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), and the cooperative COOBIO.

Who Lives There?

A drone-eye view of a group of kids surrounding two men who are piloting a drone

Vale do Ribeira is home to a mixture of populations, including indigenous, quilombola (descendants of escaped slaves), caiçara (coastal mixtures of indigenous, African, and European peoples), and immigrant communities.  People here subsist primarily on agriculture, fishing, and ecotourism.

What are We Doing?

A group of Brazilian kids, adults, and elders surround a teacher who is showing the inside of a small wooden box, where tropical bees are housed.

We are working to support and improve education in agroecological topics, primarily tropical stingless bees, which are critically important to the ecological health of the region.  This is part of a larger project to sustainably develop the region through agroecology.

What are Tropical Stingless Bees?

Tropical stingless (or native) bees consist of hundreds of species of bees with reduced or nonexistent stingers which live all across the topics.  They can be as tiny as a fruit fly or as big as a honey bee.  Because they do not sting, they are great for teaching and raising as livestock to create economic products.  Although they don’t sting, some do bite (although it is not usually painful).

Tropical stingless bees produce honey and fermented pollen, both of which are stored in pots (as opposed to honeycombs).  The honey takes on a variety of flavors and is runnier than honey bee honey because it contains less sugar.  Honey is extracted from the pots via pipettes.  They also produce wax and propolis.  Tropical native bees are raised in meliponarios (as opposed to apiaries).  In Guapiruvu, they are an important component of agroecology, since they pollinate the juçara palm which is threatened by illegal harvesting.

Small wooden houses holding a variety of species of tropical stingless bees on stilts around a tropical forest
Honey bee sized yellow stingless bees in a large cluster on a tray with troughs filled with sugar water
Small elongated bees with large dangling back legs and green eyes hovering near a wax tube curving upwards from a small hole in a box and covered in more Jataí bees
Circular disk of eggs in a hexagonal pattern surrounded by flaky wax, with circular wax pots outside the flaky parts, which are filled with honey and pollen (in separate pots)
Circular egg disk with two layers of hexagonally arranged eggs, surrounded by a thin layer of flaky wax, and a number of honey and pollen pots. A layer of dark propolis lines the wooden box outside the pots, and there are Bugia bees everywhere
Three little black bees are spaced equally around the inside of a circular entrance, working to construct a tube
Seven tropical stingless bees, with a fuzzy yellow thorax and a brownish-orange abdomen, surround an open honey pot filled with honey
Two men working on a meliponario, consisting of two vertical wooden beams and a cross-beam connecting them. Level and roof materials are nearby
1) A meliponario at AirbnBee in Barão Geraldo, Brazil, near UNICAMP; 2) Bugia bees feeding on sugar water at a trough feeder; 3) Jataí bees hovering near the tube entrance to their hive; 4) Inside of a jataí hive, showing the egg disk and surrounding pots filled with honey and pollen (they are stored separately); 5) Inside of a bugia hive, showing a similar structure; 6) Bees maintaining the entrance to their hive; 7) Bees working on producing honey; 8) Building a meliponario in Guapiruvu (this one stores all the hives under the same structure) [photos by Lev Horodyskyj and Roberto Greco]

Project Progress

An Angolan man, Italian man, Brazilian man, and American man stand under a sign in a barn reading "Juçarama"
A group of children of various ages is gathered around a table with various plant sprouts that they are observing and touching
A rectangular wooden box pained with van Gogh's Starry Night on one side and the word "mel"and some cartoon trees on the other side sits on a table near paint
Several children are painting wooden boxes with slats on a table in a community center
A rectangular wooden box painted soft blue with various flowers sits on a blue table
Multiple girls work on painting beehive boxes on a wooden table outside in the rain forest
Children of various ages are gathered around a triangular blue flag onto which they are painting a snake
Three teenage boys and two teenage girls pose in the concrete soccer field in front of the Guapiruvu community center

Project Roadmap

2025 Roadmap

  • Conduct several bee learning events for members of the Guapiruvu community througout the year
  • Provide a variety of hives and in-depth training on hive maintenance, reproduction, and honey harvesting to 4 families in Guapiruvu
  • Develop educational materials and program templates that can be utilized in other nearby communities

Beyond 2025

  • Train community members in basic research methodologies for bee observation and data collection
  • Provide business training lessons and materials to families involved in building and maintaining stingless bees
  • Distribute native bee products (honey, propolis, pollen) more widely through the existing co-op network

Recent Updates

  • January 2025 – Roberto traveled with his students to Guapiruvu where they conducted bee education and art activities as part of Science Voices’ Greenworks endeavor as well as existing extension projects funded by UNICAMP.
  • November 2024 – Roberto and Lev traveled to ConBraPi 2024 bee conference in Aparacida, São Paulo, Brazil, to continue networking with local bee education and meliponiculturists.
  • September 2024 – Hive acquisition was delayed due to intense and widespread wildfires in the Ribeirão Preto region, where the hives were going to be sourced from.
  • August 2024 – Roberto and Lev traveled to the 8th International Workshop on Meliponiculture in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil, to network with meliponiculturists in São Paulo state and acquire hives to take to Guapiruvu.
  • May 2024 – Roberto and Gilberto traveled with members of the Guapiruvu community to nearby Cananéia to observe beehive maintenance techniques and talk with local experts.
  • May 2024 – Roberto, Lev, and Arcanjo (Roberto’s PhD student) visited Guapiruvu to help guide kids on a trek through the nearby Parque Intervales.  This is part of a continuing UNICAMP project to help kids build a connection with nature.

People

Roberto Greco

Roberto Greco

University Liaison

UNICAMP

Gilberto

Gilberto

Community Leader

Guapiruvu

Bruno Gianez

Bruno Gianez

Financial Coordinator

COOBIO