The economic crisis Cairo is going through, with the decline in the value of the local currency since the flotation decisions began in 2016, has affected the beekeeping sector and the production of natural honey in apiaries, as many beekeepers complain of worsening problems, especially after the unprecedented rise in sugar prices.
| The rise in sugar prices continued over the past year until it relatively stabilised in Ramadan this year, reaching an average price of EGP 48 in the local market (about USD 1), then its price fell according to the announced official data, reaching about EGP 40 in the local market this month, while at government ration outlets it stabilised at EGP 27. |
The ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate bees and raise them in traditional cylindrical hives made of mud and straw, and over the ages Egyptians remained skilled at producing honey and developing apiaries. The average number of apiaries nationwide reached about 25,000 in 2021.
According to data from the government Bee Research Centre, Egypt is one of the leading exporters of live bees, exporting more than 25% of live bees worldwide, in addition to exporting honey to all markets except the European Union. In 2022, Egypt exported more than 3,500 tonnes of honey, and the average number of live bee packages exported was about 1.2 million packages in the same year (each package contains 25,000 bees).
| Egypt produced about 6,100 tonnes of honey in 1971, rising to 12,000 tonnes in 1987, after which Egypt’s honey production began to decline. The data in the latest Statistical Yearbook for 2023, issued by the official Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, show a decline in the number of hives and in honey productivity in Egypt. According to the latest official statistics, in 2015 the number of traditional (baladi) hives reached about 2,000, while the number of modern frame hives was about 878,000. In contrast, honey production from traditional hives in the same year was estimated at about 12 tonnes, while it reached 4,936 tonnes from modern frame hives, compared with 2010 data, when modern frame hives were estimated at about 1,138,000, with honey production from them of about 6,025 tonnes a year. This confirms that a deterioration is taking place in the beekeeping and honey production sector, despite official statements asserting otherwise. |
Although the official statistics agency’s figures stop at 2015 and show that Egypt has a total of 879,000 beehives, other data issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in 2019 indicate that Egypt has about two million hives, revealing a clear contradiction in the official data on the bee sector, which suggests the need to create a database of the bee sector and those working in it in Egypt, as sources working in the sector who spoke to Zawia3 explained.
Beekeepers agree that the bee industry and its economics have been affected by the sugar crisis that emerged in 2016 and then strongly resurfaced last year, 2023. The beekeepers we spoke to say their industry is threatened by the shortage of their sugar quotas, as well as of the flowers and crops their bees pollinate.
A number of apiary owners we contacted say it has become difficult to obtain sugar in quantities suitable for their production. Some have also been unable to obtain ration quotas of sugar, since only licensed apiaries receive it (each beekeeper receives an amount of government sugar commensurate with the size of the apiary; starting from 15,000 bees, he is supposed to receive half a tonne of sugar to feed the bees).
As they describe it, a hive can produce up to 25 kilograms if all the means of production are available, while today beekeepers complain that production has fallen to about two thirds as a result of the sugar crisis. The number of bees has also fallen, which in turn affects some crops whose flowers bees help pollinate.
A 43-year-old beekeeper from the village of El-Ragdiya in Tanta district, Gharbia Governorate, says: “Honey production fell by 25% after the emergence of the coronavirus in 2019. This pandemic halted trade around the world for several months, which negatively affected sugar stocks and production. All beekeepers faced major problems as a result of this pandemic, the first being the rise in the price of sugar, which is the bees’ main food during winter.”
He continues: Some think that the beekeeper mixes honey with sugar as a form of adulteration, but in fact honey is the food that bees collect throughout the flowering period of plants and store to eat later, when flower production declines. Because in our industry we harvest that honey and sell it for human consumption, we compensate the bees for their honey food by giving them sugar instead.
Describing the problems facing beekeepers in Egypt, Ali El-Sayed (60, an agricultural engineer from the village of Shabshir El-Hessa in Tanta district, Gharbia Governorate) tells Zawia3 that the problems beekeepers have faced recently are many and varied. The first is bees becoming infected with diseases such as “Varroa”, which appeared several years ago and wiped out a large proportion of the bees in the area. Beekeepers began treating the problem with some medicines, but they were very expensive, so they had to find alternative treatments by mixing some human and veterinary medicines to try to save the bees.
| Varroa is a bee disease caused by a parasite known as Varroa destructor, which sucks blood, weakening the bees. It multiplies very quickly, producing a generation every eight days, all of which leads to weak productivity and affects the health of bee colonies. We found no published official statistics showing the scale of the economic losses resulting from bees being infected with this disease. |
He adds: The second problem is the spraying of pesticides on farmland, which negatively affects bees and causes the beekeeper heavy losses of bees. It also causes poisoning, when a bee returns to the hive loaded with pesticide and destroys the entire hive. He goes on: “There are other problems we face, including the scarcity of pastures and farms, and the disappearance of the fruit trees once planted along public roads and canal banks, which were a staple food for bees but dwindled as they were uprooted over time. This forced us to rely on clover crops, which are not enough to meet the bees’ need for flower nectar.”
He points out that the problems are not limited to beekeeping and the accompanying environmental factors; part of them is also due to the spread of manufactured honey in Egyptian markets, which is sold as natural honey, as its price is low compared with the prices of natural honey, causing successive and continuous losses for beekeepers.
Traders Exporting Bee Packages and Rising Burdens
Ahmed Saeed, a beekeeping expert from the city of El-Mahalla El-Kubra in Gharbia Governorate in northern Egypt, tells us that the main problem lies in the lack of oversight of the traders monopolising sugar, who sell it at different prices, making it hard to buy. Exporters also add to beekeepers’ suffering when selling bee packages in the Arabian Gulf. He adds: “The beekeeper exports bees to Arab countries by the kilo once or twice a year, and the price of a package reaches about 120 riyals, while the riyal’s price in banks today has reached EGP 12.4, meaning the price of a single package is EGP 1,488. Despite this, the exporter buys it from the Egyptian beekeeper for only about EGP 150, which means there is no profit margin for beekeepers. If this margin were available, beekeepers would be able to buy quantities of sugar and provide good food for the bees.”
In the same context, Abdel Salam Atman, chairman of the board of the Egyptian Beekeepers Association, who lives in the village of Shabshir El-Hessa, known as the stronghold of the bee industry in Egypt, explains that the market is supply and demand, and after the rise in sugar prices bees have become weak and undesirable, which has affected the hard currency inflows that used to come from exporting them.
Atman tells Zawia3 that a single hive consumes between 35 and 40 kilos of sugar per season on average, stressing that there is no substitute for sugar as food for bees, and that its rising price has left bees hungry and weak because they find no flowers to feed on. Based on his monitoring of the apiaries he owns, he says the number of his bees has fallen by 50%, and he expects to lose more bees as temperatures drop next winter and prices rise.
Egypt’s Honey Production Stronghold
Shabshir El-Hessa and Hessat Shabshir are two villages in Tanta district, Gharbia Governorate, 110 kilometres from the capital, Cairo. They are the largest areas with apiaries in Egypt and produce the largest amount of honey, as well as all beekeeping supplies. Beekeeping is the source of work for most of the village’s people, and they used to export their production to all Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Emad Atman, who owns a number of apiaries in the same village, comments: “I speak for all beekeepers: the crazy rise in the price of sugar and wood is causing serious damage to the profession. I call on the authorities to quickly find a radical solution to the sugar problem, since it is the main pillar on which honey production rests, and I propose that the state subsidise and provide a sugar quota for every beekeeper based on the number of hives he has, so that this industry can return to what it once was, because if the situation continues like this, Egyptian honey production will end.” He points out that in the 1990s the authorities provided a ration quota of sugar for beekeepers, which has now stopped, so they are demanding the return of that quota so that bees do not die out from hunger.
The Authorities Try to Find Solutions to Save Bees and Beekeepers
Speaking to us, Mohamed Fathallah, head of the Bee Research Department at the Plant Protection Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, comments: “The ministry is working on the One Million Trees initiative to provide a source of nectar, as these are flowering trees from which bees will benefit greatly. The ministry is also now in contact with the Ministry of Supply to provide a low-cost sugar quota for beekeepers, and we are still waiting for their response to the proposal. We do not know whether they will be able to provide that quota from their reserve stocks; this matter is still under study.”
| In May 2023, El-Sayed El-Quseir, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, announced that the ministry had planted 1.3 million trees during the first phase of the presidential initiative to plant 100 million trees (an initiative launched by President El-Sisi in 2022, aiming to plant 100 million trees over seven years, from 2022 to 2029). According to the Minister of Agriculture’s statements, the trees were planted in the governorates of Qalyubia, Gharbia, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minya, Assiut and New Valley. The ministry, through the Central Administration for Afforestation, the Desert Research Centre, the Agricultural Research Centre and the Comprehensive Development Projects Agency, also planted 700,000 trees in some woodlands and in the areas surrounding the ministry’s nurseries nationwide. |
Fathallah stresses that the Ministry of Agriculture provides some natural medicines and supplies that treat diseases and have no harmful effect on bees or their products, and the ministry always announces this during extension seminars, whereas chemical treatments and veterinary and non-veterinary drugs are, as he describes them, harmful to bees’ health, weakening their immunity and making them vulnerable to disease.
According to the Egyptian authorities, they are implementing a plan to develop honeybee keeping (the Plants and Bees project), as part of a broader strategy to revive sectors of the so-called “forgotten economy“, focusing on certain types of bees to increase their productivity and exports. According to official data, Egypt currently exports about 25% of the world’s total honey exports. Cairo is implementing the project in cooperation with the European Union and six Mediterranean countries: Egypt, Algeria, Italy, Spain, France and Greece.
Between official assurances pointing to the development of the bee industry and its productivity in Egypt, and beekeepers complaining of poor conditions in the sector and their deteriorating economic situation, the pressing question remains about the contradiction between official statements and the facts we documented and the testimonies of those we spoke to: when will the crisis end?
