Development and validation of multiplication process of Apis mellifera bee hives for commercial use

• Grant number: 22/01700-5
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: July 01, 2022
• End date: December 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Animal Production
• Agreement: FINEP - PIPE/PAPPE Grant
• Principal Investigator: Joyce Mayra Volpini Almeida Dias
• Grantee: Joyce Mayra Volpini Almeida Dias
• Company: Agrobee Soluções em Polinização e Sustentabilidade Ltda
• CNAE: Atividades profissionais, científicas e técnicas não especificadas anteriormente
• City: Ribeirão Preto
• Associated researchers: Andresa Aparecida Berretta e Silva ; Carlos Pamplona Rehder ; Diego Moure Oliveira

Abstract

The demand for Apis mellifera hives in Brazil is notorious. The country has enormous potential for commercial exploitation of these hives, whether for the production of honey or other bee products, or for use in applied pollination. It is a market that annually moves more than US$ 120 million in the country, but it is not among the 10 largest honey producers in the world and does not supply even 2% of the soybean planted area in Brazil for commercial pollination purposes, for example. AgroBee is developing this important pollination market. The results of the project previously carried out with the support of FAPESP, FINEP and with the company's own resources, which generated the "Uber das Abelhas" App, is revolutionizing the market, and a new bottleneck with the potential to limit the scalability of the project has become the number of bee colonies available in Brazil. Thus, the development of an optimized methodology for the multiplication of these hives, aiming at a large-scale production at affordable costs, is necessary. Currently, the national market for the multiplication and sales of A. mellifera hives is limited, either by the delivery, which usually occurs in a few hives at a time, or by the values, which are often high, and mainly by the lack of these suppliers. In this way, the present project intends to develop an optimized methodology for the multiplication of hives on a large scale, evaluating the effectiveness of this methodology in terms of the time required for the execution of the process, more adequate feeding, and final quality of the hives, according to the needs that the Commercial use for honey production purposes or applied pollination requires. Two times of large-scale multiplication will be carried out, in order to evaluate the reproducibility of the method. At the end of the project, it is expected to be able to validate this multiplication method in order to qualify/train breeders from all over the country, presenting this solution in the face of the growing demand for hives that is identified in Brazil. In addition, to presenting these results to the scientific community, through lectures and scientific manuscripts, as well as to the market. (AU)