Education

Masters Projects/Stageonderwerpen

Dutch and international students are welcome to participate in the research programme resulting from the former Programa Regional de Apicultura y Meliponicultura of the Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica and Utrecht University.

Student projects can be carried out in Costa Rica, at the Centro de Investigaciones Apicolas (CINAT) of the Universidad Nacional, Heredia. This research programme relates to fundamental aspects of bee behaviour and communication with special interest for intranidal- and foraging behaviour and reproduction. Applied research is very important in this programme. For this, we concentrate on details of pollination behaviour, ecological importance of social bees in tropical forests (for nature conservation and forest management). The biological aspects of the traditional keeping of stingless bees are studied for development in Central America and other tropical Regions.
Projects in the tropics are always demanding and only independent and experienced students are selected.

Interested students are invited to contact:

• m.j.sommeijer@uu.nl or
• jvanveen@una.ac.cr or
• Lsanchez@una.ac.cr