If you’re one of the estimated 30,000 newcomers to Puerto Rico from Canada and the U.S. in the last five years—or are considering a move here—you may be drawn in by similar promise as others before you: year‑round good weather, tax-free incentives, coconuts and mangoes ripe for the picking, and a little patch of paradise to call your own. But ask anyone who’s put a shovel in the ground here, and they’ll tell you the truth: the tropics are as humbling as they are beautiful. And if you plan to grow any food sustainably, you’ll need more than sunshine, rain and good intentions. You’ll need bees.
Seventeen years ago, my husband and I left the corporate grind (culminating with biotech giant Amgen) and bought 15 acres in the mountain town of Utuado. It had a lot of potential but it was completely depleted. The land had 8,000 coffee trees, which made the soil extremely acidic. To the untrained eye, it looked healthy. But dig even a little and the soil and leaves told a different story.
Along with building a new house, we had to resuscitate the soil. And while we used compost complemented with our own goats’ manure, we couldn’t help but notice the absence of sights and sounds of a healthy ecosystem: few butterflies, no snakes, no lizards or frogs and very few birds circled the skies. And where were the bees? We sought the advice of a beekeeper to answer this question.
Carlos Chaparro, of Aguada, Puerto Rico, owns TainaSoy Apiario (which means Taíno Woman Apiary–a poetic name that ties Carlos’s beekeeping work to Puerto Rico’s Indigenous heritage). He provides two important services: he removes bee hives from people’s homes and he raises bees to demonstrate to clients how to safely keep bees for their properties. He grew up around bees as his father was a beekeeper and he is raising his kids to do the same.
Courtesy
During our interview, he explained that back in the day, old-timers would kill bees by drowning them in soapy water. Puerto Rico passed a law in the 1970s making it unlawful to continue this practice. That’s when Carlos’s father got the idea to do ethical and safe bee removal.
Like Father like son
As Carlos likes to say, “Bees are an indicator species—if they’re thriving, your land is healthy. If they’re struggling, it’s telling you something important about your environment.” He continued, “I like to call them environmental truth tellers.”
When the Dream Meets Reality
If you’re a recent transplant, you might believe buying land here is the hard part. And because the laws around buying property differ greatly from the U.S. and Canada, you’d be partially right. In reality, that’s just the beginning. The tropics don’t follow the tidy rules of suburban gardening.
It doesn’t just rain, it rains sideways and it’s enduring, sometimes for hours or days. With new construction, soil erosion is common. And we remember standing ankle‑deep in mud after one of our first downpours of the rainy season, realizing that the neat little garden beds we’d built had all but washed away.
That’s when we discovered the benefits of planting trees with large roots—jackfruit, palm real, bread nut, ylang ylang, mamay sapote and caimito—alongside bamboo hedgerows that brought more blossoms, more cover, more bees.
Carlos tells his clients the same thing: “Trees aren’t just for shade or fruit—they’re anchors for the soil, homes for pollinators, and protection from strong winds and heavy rain. In the tropics, you plant for stability as much as you plant for beauty or food.”
The Pollinator Puzzle
Bees in Puerto Rico don’t get a winter break. They work year‑round, and that means they need consistent nectar sources. The mistake many landowners make is monoculture: a neat row of plantains and/or bananas or lots of avocados and breadfruit. Those trees fruit once or twice a year, but how will you attract bees and wildlife throughout the year?
In sustainable agriculture, diversity matters. We plant a mixture of fruit trees, medicinal plants, palm trees and bamboo to ensure we always have something feeding us and providing nectar for bees. It’s not just good for our paletes—it’s survival for the bees. As Carlos explains, “If you want bees all year, you have to feed them all year. That means planting so something is always blooming—not just one big harvest and then months of nothing.”
We’ve come to see bees as partners on our farm. They don’t just pollinate our fruit trees. They remind us that sustainable agriculture isn’t about monoculture. It’s about creating an ecosystem that hums—literally.
Building Resilience Together
Although my husband and I have been doing eco-organic farming for 15 years and we consult others who are new to growing sustainably, we are also students. We don’t keep bees, so advice and assurance from Carlos is invaluable.
He likes to say, “Working with bees teaches patience. They don’t follow your calendar; you have to adapt to theirs. It’s the same with the land.” And he’s right. You can read a hundred books on tropical agriculture, but until you hear the buzz (or the lack of it) on your own property, you don’t really get it.
Why This Matters Now
Puerto Rico imports more than 80 % of its food. Hurricanes, neighbors spraying, flash floods that come out of nowhere and fragile supply chains make that dependence risky. Every small farm, every edible forest, every healthy hive adds up. For newcomers to the island, this isn’t just about lowering your grocery bill or living closer to the land. It’s about joining a bigger movement already in progress, thanks to the locals: making the island more self‑sufficient.
If you’re planting your first jaboticaba tree or setting up a few hives, you’re not just experimenting with tropical farming. You’re joining an ecosystem. The soil, the bees, the rain, the traditions—they all have a say.
Or as Carlos likes to put it, “When you care for the bees, you’re caring for the whole system—plants, animals, people. Everything is connected.”
Farming sustainably in Puerto Rico will challenge you. It will also reward you in ways you can’t yet imagine. And if the bees are happy, chances are, you’re on the right track.
This was published in Bee Culture Magazine, which is a mostly subscription based publication, meaning it’s not visible to those who don’t subscribe.