About Us

In 1987, I, agronomist Mário Calheiros de Lima, learned that Salgema Chemical Industries needed to start environmental recovery work, which they were already talking about at the time in their desire to become a Green Belt, a forest reserve around of the factory’s industrial complex. From then on, I started working with them.

And right in the first years of developing this work, on an opportunity during a course in Paraná, on the recovery of degraded areas, I met a lady biologist who praised the work that was being developed and asked if I already kept bees in that place, I said no. , who didn’t know anything in depth about them.

Therefore, of the 33 years that Cinturão Verde has existed, previously managing the company as Salgema and currently Braskem, it has been at least 31 years since I got to know bees at the invitation of this lady. She guided me on the difficulties of environmental recovery in the restinga area, beachfront, rose quartz sand, in soil very poor in nutrients, and highlighted:

“You’re going to have a lot of work, my son! If you are interested in bees, these insects are essential for your work! Because they are nature’s great pollinators! I know that the wind, rain, birds, and some rodents pollinate, but not with the efficiency and effectiveness of these insects! Bees all over the world are used to pollinate plants, your work will only reproduce if the plants grow and generate seeds and then the trees multiply, but first there has to be pollination”

I returned to our base in Maceió, informed the company’s directors about the importance of this matter, especially because that lady had given me a very important signal and I couldn’t let it go unnoticed!

I started studying and reading about bees and found out that there was a friend of mine who already kept them. I contacted him and he warned that it was not a common activity and that there were some difficulties in learning to work with them, but he was willing to help me. We established a partnership, where he brought approximately 5 hives and I said that every time he went to the apiary, I wanted to go along to learn. I signed with him that everything produced from honey would be his, what I really wanted was knowledge. At that time, in the Green Belt there were approximately 50 coconut trees and only a few species of plants approximately 1 meter tall.

After about 4 months of installing these hives, they were full of combs full of honey! I was delighted with the high productivity in such a short period of time, especially in an area that is still recovering. I asked my friend for some honey, not for me, but just to give it to a great partner of mine, Engineer Mário Machado, who was the general manager of the environment area at the former Salgema. Still in an amateur way, we cut the honeycombs, strained them through a cloth and I took a clean glass Nescafé jar, full of honey. Aaah, it was a party! Everyone in the company and in the neighboring rooms were enchanted and delighted with that beauty! The honey had caught everyone’s attention, especially my friend Mário Machado.