Producers
Agrupamento de Produtores de Mel do Parque
beekeeper producer group · honey producer and marketer · apicultural-products processor · PDO producer group/manager
Casa do Mel, Quinta das Fontainhas, Bragança, Portugal
Agrupamento de Produtores de “Mel do Parque”, Lda.
Founded in Bragança in 1994, this Portuguese producer group produces and commercializes honey and other bee products. It commercializes Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP, a mountain multifloral honey produced within the protected area of Bragança and Vinhais in northeastern Portugal.
About the Producer
A little history
Founded on November 29, 1994, the group has commercialized Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP since the honey received protected-origin recognition in February 1994. In 2005, it promoted organic production of the DOP honey with the Associação dos Apicultores do Parque Natural de Montesinho. It also processes members’ beeswax and has been recognized for processing and marketing beeswax for apicultural use since 2009.
How They Work
Beekeeping in practice
This commercial limited-liability producer group produces and commercializes honey and other bee products. It manages commercialization of Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP, processes beeswax, and provides beekeepers with materials sales, wax processing, technical production support, analysis through an IPB protocol, and collection of veterinary-medicine waste.
Bragança, Portugal
Official contact details place Casa do Mel at Quinta das Fontainhas in Bragança.
Municipalities of Bragança and Vinhais, District of Bragança, Portugal
DGADR defines these two municipalities as the production area for Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP; the producer’s site also identifies them as the geographic production area.
Terra Fria Transmontana / Parque Natural de Montesinho landscape, northeastern Portugal
The producer identifies the DOP’s mountain landscape, local vegetation and watercourses; DGADR situates the product in the northern parts of Bragança and Vinhais and the Terra Fria Transmontana context.
Products & Specimens
What connects to this producer
Products listed by the Producer are kept separate from specimens held in the Collection.
Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP
Floral source: Mountain multifloral / wildflower honey. DGADR describes nectar from natural vegetation predominantly including heather, chestnut and rosemary; the producer additionally identifies local forage including Erica spp., Castanea sativa, Lavandula spp., Thymus mastichina, Cistus ladanifer and other plants.
Documented origin: Protected production area: the municipalities of Bragança and Vinhais, District of Bragança, Portugal; associated with the Parque Natural de Montesinho / Terra Fria Transmontana landscape.
Origin detail: Region
Portugal’s DGADR identifies the product as wildflower honey and states that its production area comprises the municipalities of Bragança and Vinhais. The producer’s product page likewise says it is produced in those municipalities.
Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP / Modo de Produção Biológico (MPB)
Floral source: Not separately specified; presented by the producer as the organic-production form of Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP.
Documented origin: The producer says this organic-production initiative concerns Mel do Parque de Montesinho DOP; the DOP production area is Bragança and Vinhais municipalities, Portugal.
Origin detail: Region
The official history page says that the group and the regional beekeepers’ association promoted organic production of the DOP honey in 2005. A regional business association lists both the DOP and DOP/MPB honey offerings.
Practices
How they work
- For the DOP honey, colonies are not authorized to be moved outside the geographic area of origin; honey extraction is described as occurring in the summer-to-autumn transition by centrifugation, with a producer-group representative present and the control body notified.
- The DOP is produced using Apis mellifera iberiensis; the producer says colony expansion is permitted provided exotic-race mated queens are not introduced.
- The group states that all commercialized honey lots are accompanied by a conformity technical sheet and that compliance control includes physicochemical and microbiological analyses.
- The group processes beeswax from its beekeepers and offers wax processing, technical support, analytical services, beekeeper-material sales, and veterinary-medicine-waste collection.
- The producer describes propolis production in Terra Fria Transmontana from March through October, using collection grids; its aqueous propolis extract is described as using heat and water only, followed by gravity filtration.