Honey consumption stalls as Estonian beekeepers face growing challenges

Beekeepers are not expecting the number of honey consumers to grow as purchasing habits change and concerns over adulterated products weigh on the sector, ERR reported. Beekeeper Mehis Mägit told Vikerraadio that people increasingly approach him at fairs to say, cheerfully, that they no longer eat honey.

Mägit said he had promised himself four years ago that he would stop beekeeping if the situation did not improve. Instead, he said, it had become worse. He referred to a European Union study involving both EU and independent laboratories, which found that 46 percent of honey sold through retail channels was suspected of being adulterated.

Such suspicions arise when real honey is mixed with syrup-like invert syrups that closely resemble honey in consistency and other properties but have no connection with bees. Mägit said the price of syrup at the gate of a packaging plant was already 80 cents per kilogram, pushing honey purchase prices to levels that were not sustainable.

As a result, beekeepers in Estonia are also ending their operations, Mägit said. However, he added that Estonian consumers were relatively well protected against adulterated honey. Honey sold in Estonian shops was likely to be genuine, he said, because the beekeepers’ association had maintained oversight and retail chains bought honey directly from producers.

A regulation that took effect on June 14 requires product labels to state the percentage of honey from which a product is made.

Beekeepers face other challenges as well. The National Institute for Health Development recently placed honey in the food pyramid’s category for sweets and other foods not necessary for the body, because it consists mainly of glucose and fructose and contains very small amounts of vitamins and minerals from a nutritional perspective.

Mägit said science should not consider only one aspect of honey. He argued that the honey bee had played a significant role in human evolution, saying that brain development had become possible partly because these sugars became more readily available.

A consumer survey commissioned by beekeepers found that people’s consumption habits had changed. “It is difficult to be a beekeeper under these conditions when someone comes to a beekeeper at a fair and cheerfully says, ‘I no longer eat honey,’” Mägit said. “We cannot expect an increase in consumers.”

Beekeepers are now questioning whether they are still needed, Mägit said. Some professional beekeepers have gradually taken on other work, which has become their main occupation, while they continue beekeeping on the side.