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Bulgaria offers unique mixture of high-quality bee products



Honey has turned into one of the major export products of this country over the past decade, along with yoghurt, rose oil and wine. Bulgarian honey is really tasty and has healing properties – hence the good European market conquered. Importers even use it to improve the qualities of the mass honey, sold in their native countries. That is one of the reasons why one cannot see the name Bulgarian honey abroad. If you want pure honey, come to Bulgaria and buy here, from Bulgarian producers. The bonus – you receive bio honey, even if it is not accompanied by the proper certificate, since bees here practically collect their honey among the wild meadows of nature itself.

Bee-keeping is a sort of a national sport in Bulgaria and a significant amount of our honey is produced by amateurs with few to several dozens of beehives owned. The development of the branch and the extreme quality of the product formed the basics of a project, launched last year by the Association of Professional Bee-keepers for popularization of Bulgarian honey and bee products in this country and Europe.



Mrs. Daniela Sabeva is coordinator of the project and she is really keen to share her knowledge of honey’s healing properties with the wide public:
“We can definitely call these products the super food of the future, since those are full with all vitamins and micro-elements, necessary for keeping a person healthy and also for healing him or her in case of some illness. Unfortunately, this precious gift is not that well-known by people as a natural source of prevention and treatment.”

A marketing research has been carried out within the frameworks of the project in consumption habits, regarding honey in this country and abroad. There is a slight, but sustainable trend for increasing of honey consumption in Bulgaria. However, the monthly consumption index per capita is 20 times lower on Germany, for instance. There is another difference too: Europe consumes mostly the so-called poly-floral honey, collected from different plants, while here in Bulgaria we eat predominantly acacia and linden honey, honeydew honey in South west Bulgaria. At the same time thistle honey is believed to increase male potency.

Bulgaria produces a dozen kinds of mono-floral honey, along with the poly-floral one – this is a feature of bee-keeping in this country. One can also find here all other bee products – royal jelly, bee pollen, propolis, honey bee venom and beeswax. Professional bee-keepers are contended by the fact that the average Bulgarian uses more and more bee pollen – a market, created by them.



“Bulgaria is a serious producer of bee pollen,” Chair of the Association of Professional Bee-keepers Efrem Mollov says. “However, all of this pollen is bought on our market. We are glad that people quickly got to know the usefulness of this bee product and constantly increase its consumption. We are the only European state with such an internal market for a single bee product. We think this is the route that we should stick to.”

As far as production of honey in Bulgaria is concerned, there are always enough quantities for export, experts say. Moreover, it is extremely wanted on the European market due to its high quality, exceeding the standard for the community. Germany appreciates Bulgaria honey the most and it is also the major consumer of this product in Europe. It holds 60 percent of the market for honey and bee products on the Old Continent, along with France, Spain and England.

“Germany buys bee honey mainly from Bulgaria, merely 2/3 of our export go there,” Mr. Mollov goes on to say. “Unfortunately this honey lacks the Made in Bulgaria trade mark on the German market, since they use it only to improve the qualities of the honey, imported from other countries. We have spotted that market niche and we work for its occupying. However, we need to unite our efforts in a single, powerful organization of Bulgarian bee-keepers, in order to create a name for our honey and bee products on the European market. Thus those will not be used only for the improvement of foreign brands of honey.”



Europe imports serious quantities of honey from several Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Mexico and Chile. Branch experts say that Bulgaria has the chance to occupy this niche thanks to the low transport costs for supply and the better quality of the product. Usually this country exports some 5 – 6,000 tons of honey annually, predominantly for Europe, at a price of EUR 4-5 per kilo. Recently countries like Qatar have also shown interest and those form an interesting market due to the higher prices of honey.

Finally, we should say a few words for a unique Bulgarian honey product – a mixture of honey, royal jelly, bee pollen and propolis:
“This product is really unique, since we are the only ones so far, who have succeeded in combining the 4 kinds of bee products into one,” Efrem Mollov claims. “A spoonful of this magical mixture in the morning provides the human body with many of the useful ingredients, needed through the day. We are aware that bee-keepers in Greece, Turkey and Russia try to do the same thing, but unsuccessfully for the moment.”

Not sure if it would be very polite ot reply to one of these informative articles, but I hope my 2 cents would be worth :)
When you buy honey, make sure you do it from a honest seller. Many mix it with fructose syrup, most of the honey sold in the big shops and supermarkets is actually fructose syrup. Unfortunately, price is the best sign ( pretty much like rose oil sold on the big street shops in Bulgaria, its always a fake import from China ).

Scanspeak wrote:

Not sure if it would be very polite to reply to one of these informative articles.

That's why they are here so you can all discuss the rights and wrongs on various topics.