Bees help produce more coffee

2002/06/13 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Nekazaritza
• Ekologia

The Coffea Arabica coffee plant, which has spread worldwide from Africa, yields 50% more harvest when bees participate in pollination. Formerly the coffee grew around and on it with other plants. And beside the plants lived birds and insects. Among them, bees. Nowadays, however, coffee is done intensively, in areas where there is only coffee and through self-pollination.

David Roubi, from the Tropical Research Institute of Panama, analyzes 50 two-year coffee plants concerned about the influence of intensive agriculture on production, which in some places has declined in recent years. And you have seen that bees influence more than expected the fertility of coffee plants. But not any bee, African bees are the best. Not because they are African, but because they live in social colonies.

According to David Roubi, during the colonization of Latin America by African bees the coffee harvest increased and believes it can be a cause-effect fact. Comparing, at least, the data of the Caribbean islands with those of the continents – there are hardly any bee colonies on the islands – it seems that the results are better in places where there are bees.

The coffee market is very important and, according to Roubic, considering that prices are relatively low, it is possible that producers take into account the factor of bees and start working for a more ecological agriculture. And the coffee that has grown under the sun also has worse taste than the one that has grown in the shade.

More information: Nature magazine website