Government takes new steps to resume honey export to EU

The local public authorities of the first level will have one more task – to annually register the persons who own hives and to record information about the number of bee colonies and the place to which the hives are moved temporarily. This is said in the amendments to the law on beekeeping approved by the Government. The amendments also include regulations concerning the determination of the value of the classes of bee families, on the basis of the morpho-productive and biological characteristics, and certification of the genetic bee material, Info-Prim Neo reports. “This will help prevent the illegal sale of dubious genetic bee material and will contribute to the genetic improvement of bee stocks,” said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov. The Agriculture Ministry hopes the fulfillment of the recommendations made by the competent European organizations, especially those concerning the residues in honey, will allow resuming the export of honey to the EU. The export was halted in 2008. A monitoring mission of the Food and Veterinary Office of the European Commission is expected to come to Moldova early in June. The laboratory of the National Veterinary Diagnosis Center, which was set up at a cost of €2 million, carries out tests for certifying the honey according to EU requirements. The hive owners started to be issued with passports. So far, passports have been issued for 1,189 hives of the existing over 3,000. Training courses are organized for beekeepers.