Value Chains research report Tajikistan final - Microfinance Centre

from March to July. Bee queens can be sold from April to May. Comb honey is
available in July and August. Bee bread and royal jelly are available from April till the
end of July, while bee venom can be ordered for delivery in May-July. Almost all
beekeepers are relatively free from November 15-20 to February-March. Beekeepers
sell bee packs, but the demand for them is very low. These are purchased by local
beekeepers or exported to Kazakhstan and Russia. All beekeepers sell the bee packs,
but buyers aren’t numerous.
Secondary products of beekeeping are: flower pollen (bee bread), royal jelly,
apitoxin (bee venom), propolis, and bee packs. Wax is the biggest by-product of
beekeeping. Such products as bee venom, propolis, bee bread and royal jelly can be
produced if there is enough demand and buyers. For now, most beekeepers do not
have equipment or knowledge to produce products like bee venom or bee bread. As
mentioned in Khujand, provided sufficient demand, each beekeeper can produce up to
10 kg of bee bread, 250 g of royal jelly and 1 kg of propolis. Cotton honey is collected
in areas where there are large areas under cotton, as well as in Uzbekistan (using bee
houses placed along the border). Mountain cotton is collected in mountainous and
piedmont areas.
Currently, before setting up a trailer with bee houses at a plot of land,
beekeepers pay the land owners a fee for usage. Before, the price per trailer was 100
Somoni; now land owners demand 300 Somoni, or set the rent based on the amount
of honey collected. If the fee is not agreed, beekeepers are not allowed to the land.
Meanwhile, in the Soviet times, beekeepers were paid 5 rubles for each bee family.
Another issue related to stationing the bee yards is crossing of bee routes and
bee yards, and insufficient distance between the bee yards. Farmers allow several bee
yards to be placed within several kilometers from one another, even though the rules
require the minimum distance of six km.
The issue of bee yards requires the Association of Beekeepers to work with
farmers, government bodies and organizations working with farmers, through the
media, on the role of bees in pollination, and it is also necessary to increase the role
played by beekeeping in agriculture.
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