Beekeepers would raise honey prices, but fear low purchasing power in the country

The price of honey in the BiH market could increase by up to ten percent this year, warns Omer Žalić, director of "PIP BH", the largest company for the purchase of honey and bee products in the region, for the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

This is a result, he says, of floods that caused significant material damage to apiaries in BiH, Serbia, and Croatia, but also of rain that prevented bees from collecting spring nectar.

- You can tell the year by the acacia. This year, the acacia pasture failed, it passed in the rain during which the bees could not work. We expect the other pastures that are supposed to come, like the flower pasture, to be quite bad as well. All of this will affect the increase in honey prices on the market - said Žalić. He added that an increase in honey prices on the BiH market was recorded last year as well.

According to unofficial data from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of the RS, around 10,000 people in BiH are involved in beekeeping and the production of bee products, and for a large number of them, beekeeping represents their main source of income.

One of the largest honey producers from Bijeljina, Miko Despotović, also told Patria that this year is difficult for beekeepers, but he believes that beekeepers should not raise honey prices because, due to low purchasing power, citizens' interest in honey will decrease anyway.

- The year is difficult. My 200 hives were almost half submerged in water. If the water level had risen by a few more centimeters, they would all have suffocated. Fortunately, that did not happen. I managed to quickly recover the bee colonies - Despotović told NAP.

- Unfortunately, many beekeepers from Bijeljina did not have that luck. Water carried away 200 hives from a beekeeper who kept his bees on the other side of the Sava River. But he is not the only such case; many smaller beekeepers lost between 20 and 50 hives - said Despotović.