Beekeepers say the bees didn’t manage to collect much May honey. In parts, the harvest is even smaller than last year, which was a very dry year. Stefan Condratiuc, chairman of the National Beekeepers Association, has told IPN that about 30-40% of the usual volume of May honey was collected last year, while this year some of the beekeepers extracted nothing.
Such a state of affairs is due to the early blooming of the acacia trees and the rain that followed. Stefan Condratiuc said the acacia flowered early in May, when not all the bee colonies were developed and the bees were unable to gather pollen. The rain then washed away the pollen that remained.
The beekeepers encountered also problems with the bee families. Some of them died of starvation. On week in spring was warm and the adult bees dispersed. When the temperatures dropped again, the young bees were cold and died. About 20-25% of the bee families were lost.
The beekeepers hope that the field flowers and the sunflower will bloom well after the recent rain. The harvest of lime tree honey is expected to be higher. Stefan Condratiuc said it is too early to say if the prices will grow or not. A kilogram of May honey now costs 70-80 lei.
