Russia Exports Record Amounts Of Honey

Russia has boosted exports of honey 43% year-on-year to achieve an all-time high of 4,000 tonnes in the eleven months January-November 2024, the Agriculture Ministry’s Agroexport center has stated.

The main importers of Russian honey during 2024 have been Slovakia at 26% of the overall supply, Serbia at 21%, and China at 16%.

There are about 5.5 million bee colonies, 7,000 bee farms, and approximately 500,000 individual beekeepers in Russia, while Russian beekeeping has a rich gene pool represented by four breeds – the Central Russian Bee, the Carpathian Bee, the Caucasus Mountain Bee and the Bashkir Bee. Amongst these are six types of Bee, Krasnopolyansky, Maikopsky, Orlovsky, Prioksky, Tatar and the Burzyan Wild Hive Bee.

State level breeding work of thoroughbred bees is carried out throughout Russia to preserve thoroughbred queen bees. Russia has introduced regulatory requirements for bee products and food hygiene, housing, feeding, breeding, quarantine, compulsory preventive measures and diagnostic tests on honeybees in its regions. Fourteen state higher education institutions train professionals in beekeeping. Russia is the world’s sixth largest producer of honey after China, Turkiye, Iran, India and Argentina.

Individual beekeepers produce more than 90% of honey in Russia.