By Tara Laskowski

Mason graduate student German Perilla meets with potential beekeepers for the first time. Photo courtesy of German Perilla

When he goes to visit the Maijuna people in the Peruvian Amazon, Mason student German Perilla is welcomed by the name they gave him — “ua” — which means, simply, “bee.”

An appropriate name, given that last year Perilla brought more than 600,000 honeybees to their small community as part of a beekeeping program through his studies at Mason. Perilla is pursuing a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, with a focus in environmental science and community engagement.

Tucked away in a remote part of the northeastern Peruvian Amazon, the Maijuna Indians are a very isolated group of forest-dwellers. Today, there are approximately 400 Maijuna individuals living in four communities. Perilla began working with the Maijuna through Mason professor Michael Gilmore, an ethnobiologist who’s been working with the Maijuna for many years and helping them maintain their cultural, biological and ecological traditions.

Twice a year, Perilla travels to the Amazon to do workshops and classes with the Maijuna. It’s not an easy journey. After a nine-hour plane ride to Iquitos, the capital of the Peruvian Amazon, Perilla then travels by boat for almost 24 hours to reach Maijuna lands.

Once there, Perilla teaches the beekeepers about the biology, ecology and behavior of bees, the flowering cycle of jungle plants and practical management of the hives. The group will also learn how to harvest honey and wax and make products such as candles, jams and creams.

Love at First Sight

Mason professor Michael Gilmore gets a face painting with ink from a plant called achote. Photo courtesy of German Perilla

Ever since he first started working with bees, Perilla was, well, stung by the idea.

“The very moment we opened the hive, it was love at first sight. I’ve been working with bees ever since,” he says.

Perilla has worked on beekeeping projects all over the world. As part of the United Nations Solidarity Network in his home country of Colombia, Perilla worked with refugees of war, showing them economic opportunities with bees and small animals. In Israel, he participated in the Bees for Rural Development program.

His Maijuna beekeeping project is funded in part by the Rainforest Conservation Fund and Mason’s New Century College, as well as by private donations.

Gilmore says that Perilla’s project is perfect in many ways.

“I’m most excited about the fact that the Maijuna can use the beekeeping project for income, but still maintain their traditional lifestyle,” he says. “The bees will provide an economic means to these communities without causing any environmental destruction.”

Empowering a Community

The newly trained beekeepers in action. Photo courtesy of German Perilla

But perhaps the most important component of the project is the community empowerment it provides.

Many of the older Maijuna do not know how to read or write, but this program allows them to provide for their families and communities. Perilla is also helping the community develop a co-operative to which the beekeepers will sell all their raw materials wholesale. The co-op will then make all the byproducts, market and promote their products and resell them to consumers.

“They have to learn to relate commercially to their product and learn about taxes and law,” says Perilla, who is passionate about training the Maijuna not only how to work with bees but also how to have confidence and power.

“One of the failures I’ve found in these types of programs is that they’ll train them to be beekeepers. And that’s it. That doesn’t work.”

The co-operative will allow the communities to earn money that they can use for needed services such as medical care, school supplies and clothing. Perilla and Gilmore are also helping the Maijuna on a greater scale to protect their ancestral land from government development and outside poachers by giving them the confidence to control their own destiny.

“They are incredibly involved in the project,” says Gilmore. “German is excited about this project, and the Maijuna are, too. They view the project as their own, and that’s really important and central to the goals of this project.”

Says Perilla: “For me, it has been a real fulfillment of life. You can really make a difference there, and that is what is important to me. Conditions may be harsh in many respects, but the satisfaction you get from doing this is worth it. Whatever it is, I’m contributing to saving the Amazon and empowering these people, so I’m proud of this moment.”

See more photos of the Maijuna community and the beekeeping efforts in this photo gallery

http://gmu.smugmug.com/Academic-Life/CHSS/beekeeping/16622111_CscwXf#1252697159_zDxPwfm

http://envstudies.org/about.html

German Perilla, Apiarist and Native Bee Pollinator Research Biologist

German Perilla originally hails from Bogota, Columbia. He earned his B.S. in Biology from University of Maryland and became a naturalized U.S. citiizen in 1987.

After obtaining his B.S., German returned to Columbia and worked on pollination projects for several years. Among them he worked for the large, well-known Columbian fruit and flower growers and exporters, Delagro and Flores de los Andes, where he and his colleagues pioneered the method of using africanized bees to pollinate the crops grown in the extensive greenhouse system. (Note, each greenhouse covers approximately one hectare of an intensively farmed monoculture.)

German and his beekeeping colleagues founded ASOAPICUN, an association of beekeepers open to everyone, to establish a high standard of quality in beekeeping and bee products, and to provide educational programs in apiculture. ASOAPICUN worked with Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros (National Federation of Coffee Growers), staging beekeeping workshops to train beekeepers in keeping the newly africanized European honeybee. These workshops covered all facets of beekeeping, from setting up hive colonies and harvesting products, to africanized bee behavior, working safely with the africanized bee, and explaining genetic selection techniques to produce manageable and highly productive bee lines.

German’s work with ASOAPICUN also initiated collaboration with CORPOICA (la Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuariaan, the important Columbian government agricultural research body), on the most efficient methods to collect pollen, including construction of pollen traps. He also led studies of proper pollen drying and packaging which led to the establishment of government industry standards. In the forefront of discovering the first infestations of the Varroa Mite in Columbia, German with his colleagues, pioneered the management of the Varroa Mite parasite in Columbia.

Before leaving Columbia, German was hired by the Columbian Presidency to work as a consultant and training facilitator to the United Nations’ la Oficina para los Desplazados de la Violencia (Office for Displaced Persons of Violence) to develop programs for self sufficiency for the country’s large population of refugees. German was in charge of teaching apiculture and business skills to these refugees and reported directly to the Columbian President’s staff.

At the invitation of the Israeli government, German became a member of a select multi-national group of university-educated apiarists representing all continents (except Antarctica). He travelled the country and explored all aspects of the beekeeping industry from the classroom to practical field work. The purpose was to facilitate exchange of beekeeping experience from apiarists around the world, and to promote apiculture in Third World countries as a profitable enterprise.

Returning to the United States in 1998 with his wife and two sons, German eventually came to work for Dr. Wood in the Master of Arts of Independent Studies (MAIS) in the Zoo and Aquarium Leadership (ZAL) Master’s Program at George Mason University. He came to Environmental Studies at Airlie in 2000 to start an apiculture program for research and education. In 2004 German added the additional facet of researching competition of the European honeybee with native bee pollinators on ESA’s field station.

German enjoys spending time with his family and anything bee-related.