Country

Brazil

Brazil may become one of the most structurally important countries in the entire Atlas. The country produced a record 67.3 million kilograms of honey in 2024, but the real story is the variety hidden inside that number. Brazil has officially protected honeys from the Pantanal wetlands, Paraná, Minas Gerais, Ceará and the southern highlands. Some are ordinary nectar honeys; others are much stranger. Bracatinga honeydew honey begins when sap-feeding insects feed on Mimosa scabrella trees and bees collect the resulting honeydew. Northern Minas Gerais and Ceará have aroeira honeys produced from a combination of flower nectar and honeydew. Western Paraná's geographical indication goes even further: it recognizes honey made by both *Africanized Apis mellifera and the native stingless Jataí bee, Tetragonisca angustula***. Brazil is therefore not one honey industry. It is a continental system involving forests, wetlands, semiarid scrub, crop landscapes and biologically different kinds of honey-making bee.