OREANDA-NEWS. July 19, 2010. It is stipulated by the amendments to the Law on Apiculture, adopted by the Parliament at the meeting. According to Valeriu Cosarciuc, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry, the given amendments are aimed at the improvement of the Law on Apiculture and the increase of implementation process efficiency for the development of apicultural sector.

The law must regulate the apicultural relations, protect the rights of beekeepers and consumers of beekeeping products, protect the honey bees and create the conditions for their rational use in order to get the beekeeping products. Earlier, Moldova adopted the National Apiculture Development Program for the period of 2006-2015, created the up-to-date laboratory under the Republican Veterinary Diagnostic Center to the amount of over EUR2 million that allowed certifying honey according to the EU requirements.

This benefited the free export of Moldavian beekeeping products to the EU. Besides, the Natural Honey Technical Regulations, corresponding to EU standards, was approved; the Goods Council on Natural Honey, other beekeeping and processed products was created; the campaign on apiary passports issuance was carried on. Currently, 1189 apiaries from 3000 existing received the passports.

These and other measures favored the improvement of situation in the apiculture: the number of bee-families increased from 95.6 thousand in 2006 to 119.1 thousand in 2008 (by 24.6%); volume production of honey increased from 2.2 thousand tons in 2005 to 2.4 thousand tons in 2008 (by 9%); export of honey to the EU increased from 237.1 tons in 2005 to 310.4 tons in 2008 (by 30.9%). At the same time, when implementing the law on various fields of activity the problems, holding the development of apiculture, arose.

The amendments were adopted in order to solve these problems. They must eliminate the doubleness of interpretation of some clauses of the law, make the registration of apiaries on the temporary stands for honey yield obligatory for beekeepers and Mayors in order to protect the bees from contaminations, caused by the processing of agricultural and forest lands, etc.