Tajikistan has reportedly increased the number of bee families this year. A honey festival took place in Dushanbe in early June.
According to the statistical data from the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), the number of bee families has increased in the country from 220,000 in 2018 to 228,000.
An official source at a MoA says Tajik farmers produce a high-quality honey that makes it possible to export honey abroad.
According to him, Tajikistan now exports honey in small quantities to the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
A total area of farmlands and forests in Tajikistan is 4.4 million hectares and their honey reserves reportedly amount to 132,000 tons that allows bringing the number of bee families in the country to 500,000.
“Meanwhile, the current level of use of honey reserves doesn’t reach even half the existing capacity,” the MoA specialists say.
Last year, Tajik farmers reportedly produced more than 4,100 tons of honey, which was 80.3 tons more than in 2017 (in 2017, Tajik farmers produced 4,021.4 tons of honey).
In Tajikistan. the bees forage almost exclusively on wild flowers. In the mountain areas, bees benefit from the steep mountains because the bloom period for flowers is longer. They first bloom at lower, warmer, elevations, and gradually bloom later at higher elevations. Almost all beekeepers in Tajikistan use the Soviet 'chest' style beehive.
