"The lack of such a system is the cause of low productivity as if in the world about 30 kg of honey accounts for each bee family, the index in our country is an average of 10 kg, and this is the cause of high prices. Beekeepers have to feed their families at the expense of those 10 kg, and so they carry out direct sales at high prices, not looking for special markets," Mammadov said.
He added that the creation of a special beekeeping system will help increase productivity and ensure the production of competitive products.
"We’ve already started developing this system, and perhaps already since next year it will be applied. A gene pool of bees will be created starting from the next year in support of beekeeping," Mammadov said.
As for search of purebred Caucasian gray bee, Mammadov said that search is underway in 14 districts and 18 villages of the country.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also launched the beekeeping revitalization project in Azerbaijan, which would help Azerbaijan improve the productivity of local honey bees.
To improve local bee subspecies and conserve genetic diversity, the Ministry of Agriculture and FAO launched an ambitious project in early 2015 to bring the Caucasian honeybee back to apiaries in northern Azerbaijan and make beekeeping an even more attractive and productive business.
But by the end of the two-year project, at least twenty bee colonies with improved honey production performance will be ready. Since it may take upward of six years to realize the full benefit of such breeding programs, the government has committed to maintain the programme jump-started by FAO.
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