Fake honey, unfair imports and insufficient support for the sector are the main problems facing beekeeping in Bulgaria. That is why producers are calling for stricter control of the quality and origin of honey.
Georgi Kurtev has been raising bees for years. He defines himself as a savior because he has a mission – to protect bees and thus maintain the ecological balance.
Georgi Kurtev – beekeeper: "My main mission is to make bees feel good. A big problem is the disappearance of bees – this is appearing more and more in Bulgaria. My goal is to save the swarms, collect them and give them a new home. The hive is like our body – one creature, and these bees are like our cells and we must take care of them."
According to Georgi, a threat to the existence of bees is aggressive agriculture.
Georgi Kurtev – beekeeper: "The use of pesticides and environmental pollution affect bees. Bees are very important – many crops will disappear if there are no bees."
For beekeepers in our country, one of the main problems is the entry of imitations into the market. That is why they call for more control of quality and origin.
Srebrin Iliev – chairman of the National Branch Beekeeping Union: "The priority is the fight against fake honey. This is a problem that is slowly killing us. It is not only for Bulgaria. It is difficult to say how much fake honey there is, because we have no methods to catch it. We need a strategy. For years we have been asking the Ministry of Agriculture to develop such a strategy, but so far we have not met with support."
Ivan Kanev – Chairman of the “Beekeepers“ Association – Ruse: "If we were not the beekeepers, there would be no bees in nature, at least in our region, because there is a lot of chemistry in agriculture."
Stoyan Ivanov is a third-generation beekeeper. He takes care of 220 bee colonies in the Ruse region alone. He says that the import of honey undercuts the prices of domestic production.
Stoyan Ivanov – beekeeper: "It is difficult for a person to support himself with beekeeping at these prices, with these insurances, low yields. Under these conditions, the trend is downward. There is no money for development."
Ivan Kanev: "The import of cheap food from Latin America will try to undercut prices."
Georgi Kurtev: "We import honey from countries where the quality is not controlled - whether there are chemical pesticides. Very often the honey is diluted with glucose syrup."
Srebrin Iliev: "There is no way not to buy it at a low price, since the main indicator of the price is the price of fake honey. When it is low, it also puts pressure on the price of real honey."
Georgi Kurtev: "People enter the store and say: why does your honey as a beekeeper cost 9 euros, and in the store it is available for 4? Well, because one is real."
And beekeepers are calling for unity in the sector to protect domestic production.