In Prespa there are to be found about 2000 different species of plants. This makes Prespa National Park a unique area for beekeeping. There are currently four beekeepers in Prespa who have decided not to move their beehives out of the area, doing what is known as non-mobile beekeeping, and they hope to introduce other residents in the area to this beneficial occupation.
The four beekeepers follow practices that are friendly to the bees, their product and the environment. In particular, the bees collect their own food, they are not fed with sugar or other artificial feeds and always leave enough honey in the hive so that they can get through the Prespa winter, which lasts almost 5-6 months, without any losses. Thus the production is always small (10-15 kg of honey per hive), but the honey produced is pure and of high nutritional value. In addition, diseases such as the varroa mite are biologically controlled once a year (autumn), with a solution of oxalic acid, when the honey harvest is over.
According to analyses by the Dept of Pharmacy (University of Athens), the majority of honeys in Prespa are pure flower honeys with an original and very rich pollen profile for Greek standards. This means that Prespa honey contains pollen that is not often found in other honeys produced in Greece. The most predominant pollen is from plants of the Rosaceae family, accounting for approximately 60% of the total (rosehip, hawthorn, ragweed, ragweed, wild apple, wild cherry, blackberry, blackberry, sorbia/chokeberry, smeuria, gorcia, wild strawberry, wild rowan, etc.). The remaining 40% pollen percentage is distributed among plants of 19 different plant families and this results in the fact that pollen from one plant does not dominate, but pollen from many different plant species is recorded, which is to be expected if we take into account that in Prespa, 1/3 of the country’s plants are recorded.
Prespa honey has a strong antibacterial profile with emphasis on Gram positive bacteria and a strong antifungal profile for the fungi Cadidans giabrata, C.tropicallis, C.albicans. This was shown by the results of the analysis on the biological attributes of Prespa honey, carried out by the Dept of Pharmacy within the framework of the Poliprespa project in an attempt to highlight the specific characteristics of the hive products of non-mobile beekeeping in Prespa.
Prespa’s beekeepers have decided to market their honey under a common label, which will communicate its unique characteristics, with the aim of creating a group of producers in the future and thus facilitate their activity through investment tools. They hope that the joint effort to promote Prespa honey will bear fruit and will set an example to motivate younger farmers to engage in stable beekeeping within the boundaries of the National Park.