THE EVOLUTION OF HONEY PRODUCTION IN ROMANIA BETWEEN 2000 AND 2011

In many European Union countries, the beekeeping sector is in decline due to the decrease of the agricultural land areas, pesticides and bee diseases. However, there are countries where honey production is augmenting. Romania is among the countries where honey production has considerably increased over the last decade. The scope of this paper is to show the honey production evolution in Romania between 2000 and 2011 and is based on the statistics provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Rural Development.The data has been produced with the help of following metrics and indicators: the number of beekeepers, the number of bee families, honey consumption, honey price and honey production. During the mentioned period, the total number of bees has grown continuously with a maximum for 2011 at 1.2 million of bee families. Honey production also increased from 11.746 tons for the year 2000 to 24.700 tons for 2011. Therefore we can conclude that Romania is among the countries with a welldeveloped beekeeping industry, due to several factors: the high number of bee families available for farming, the quantity and quality of honey production, the diversity of bee farming and the results of scientific research and human resources’level of work qualification.