Did you know that honey is a sweet by-product of the planted tree industry? This product was instrumental in transforming the life of Nardely, portrayed in the third episode of #GrowingStories
Transcription
Actually, everything you see here, everything built here came from beekeeping.
NARDELY RAMOS DE CARVALHO MOREIRA – BEEKEEPER
Yams go well with honey, right? I produce honey.
I started production with four hives, to see if it was really what I wanted. The average production of those hives was around 60 or 70 kilograms per hive.
Many beekeepers do this to complement their income, but not me, it is my main source of income.
This is sawdust made from eucalyptus wood; sawdust makes a little the smoke, which we use so that the bees understand that they need to fill up their abdomens with honey and not sting us.
It used to be really hard to convince people to let us put bees on their property. Not only did they not believe in beekeeping, it wasn’t recognized as a profession.
Usually at harvesting time, a box has 130,000 bees.
So we founded an association in Ipatinga and then set out to look for a company, which allowed us to use all of its area in all the municipalities where it has operations. This is what made the difference, going from 120 hives to 500 almost instantly.
Through this partnership with the sector, honey production increased 80%.
They are extremely productive areas, precisely because eucalyptus sustains them.
I have two children, who are already working with me in beekeeping. They are already part of the process. My wife, she is part of the process because there is that part where you have to separate the honey and bottle it, there’s also internal processing that can be done…
When it gets to this point, the moisture has already been removed and the honey is ready to be consumed, and to be collected.
Bees… go through cycles and follow this type of rule, and this gave me a better vision of this idea of associations.
Each year, the region produces 25 to 30 tons of honey.
This is why I started with one beekeeper, with two, today there are… around thirty… And we work together, we sell honey together, we buy material together.
I put this back in with the bees I have near here, they come clean this up, this gets really clean, so I can put it back in another box.
Nardely is one of 45,000 workers who benefit from job generation programs in the planted tree sector.
This thing makes us really proud, to be able to look around, look at the family and say, yeah, I make a living from these efforts I made.
