Apicultura no Sertão Paraibano : principais dificuldades, sob a ótica dos pequenos apicultores.

Abstract

In the mid-twentieth century, in order to increase the production of honey, Africanized bees were introduced in Brazil. These quickly dispersed without any control in several regions, causing several damages to the local community. This fact required an improvement of the techniques by the local beekeeper so that there was a balance between the benefits and the problems brought about by the new species. Currently, beekeeping has been established as a prominent economic activity, mainly in the Brazilian semi-arid region. The State of Paraíba is inserted in this context, and in particular the Sertão Paraibano, because beekeeping is an ecologically correct activity and requires little investment to start the production of products from beekeeping. However, like any relatively artisanal activity, there are factors that need to be overcome by beekeepers in order to obtain better results. In this direction, the present study had as general objective to analyze the beekeeping in the backlands of Paraíba, evidencing the main difficulties from the perspective of the small beekeepers. As specific objectives, we chose to characterize the profile of beekeepers in the sertanejos and to identify the main difficulties reported for the implementation of apiaries and commercialization of bee products; to point out the main bee products produced for commercialization in the Sertão da Paraíba; to diagnose and to distinguish the difficulties of the beekeepers inherent to the productive territories and to suggest solutions to overcome the limitations encountered, besides proposing actions for the development of regional beekeeping.