It was a good climb
Ramūnas Ardavičius, a fourth-generation beekeeper from the Kėdainiai region, laughs at the rumors that the heat has damaged the nectar of the plants and there will be less honey.
“It’s an injustice,” says the long-time beekeeper. – This year there was honeysuckle. And this is the best honey, which is especially valued by the Germans.”
The bees collected honey from the leaves this year, which is not always the case. What will be the final harvest for the beekeeper and entrepreneur, it is still too early to decide.
“It’s still hard to say. We need to count the chickens in autumn”, says R. Ardavičius.
However, the beekeeper says that he expects the harvest to be average: it is neither very good nor bad. Spring picking was pretty good. And in autumn, they will calculate the average: how much honey was extracted from the hive on average during this season. You need to look at the average, and not how much honey is brought by one family of bees individually.
“One hive will hatch, and the other may not. It will be more in one family and less in the other,” the beekeeper shares his observations.
This year, the winter was good for this apiary. There was no loss, so the beekeeper does not scare his customers. He says he left the honey prices the same – 4 euros – for one kilogram of honey. This was the price last year and this year as well.
The heat dried up the nectar
Diana Tamašauskienė, a native who discovered beekeeping 40 years ago and fell in love with it, says that the heat has dried the nectar of the flowers and the bees simply cannot find it. Plants need moisture to secrete nectar, and there is not enough moisture and extreme heat.
“The nectaries of most plants are open and the nectar evaporates very quickly,” says D. Tamašauskienė, who keeps beehives in her hometown, Gudžiūnai.
The harvest of collected honey did not suffer much, because the bees collected more honey due to the weather conditions. Nectar is a sweet liquid that is released in the form of drops on leaves or other green parts of the plant in dry and hot weather, but it is not nectar. Beekeepers say that honeysuckle honey does not harden longer, is darker in color and contains a variety of minerals, it is rich in natural potassium and sodium salts.
“A lot of bees have collected honeybees and very beautiful ones,” the beekeeper is happy.
She mentions that this year there was another special thing about the honey bear.
“The linden blossomed at a very favorable time. Such flowering, when bees can collect very pure, unmixed honey from linden blossoms, happens very rarely,” the beekeeper is happy.
Competition is increasing
When asked about the price, the woman says that the beekeepers are worried and do not raise the prices, but they are happy that it is at least the same as last year.
It turns out that a lot of imported honey appeared on the market. A lot of it comes from China and Ukraine. And that’s why the price of honey is falling.
Beekeepers are worried about this and very much hope that the price of honey stays the same and does not fall in any way. The bulk price of honey can be the same, but in the market – somewhat different, people in big cities buy even more expensive.
This year, the normal price of honey is 5-6 euros per kilogram, depending on the type.
“Honey production is a gift from God and cannot be given cheaply,” D. Tamašauskienė is convinced.
2024-09-07 22:13:12