Mägit told Vikerraadio that EU testing found suspected adulteration in 46 percent of tested honey import samples. Honey fraud involves mixing real honey with cheaper inverted sugar syrups that closely resemble it but are not made by bees.

At about 80 cents per kilogram at the packaging plant, he said inverted syrup has also driven the purchase price of honey to unsustainable levels, forcing some Estonian beekeepers to leave the industry.

"Four years ago, I promised myself that if the situation didn't change, I'd quit," Mägit recalled. "Now it's been four years, and things have actually gotten even worse."

A regulation that took effect June 14 requires labels to show the origin, by percentage, of different types of honey in a product.

Store-bought still real in Estonia

Estonian consumers are relatively well protected from adulterated honey regardless, Mägit explained, with industry oversight and retailers sourcing directly from producers helping keep fraudulent products off store shelves.

"If you're buying from a store in Estonia, you're most likely still buying real honey," he said. "No beekeeper is risking fraud if they're putting their name on the jar."

Other developments in Estonia, however, still have beekeepers concerned, as the National Institute for Health Development (TAI) now classifies honey alongside sweets and other foods of little nutritional value. Its place in official dietary guidance reflects honey's high glucose and fructose content and relatively low levels of vitamins and minerals.

After recovering from the shock, Mägit says beekeepers have come to understand that science can't focus on just one aspect.

"Science also tells us that honeybees have played a very significant role in human evolution," Mägit explained, noting that humans owe their brain development to the very sugars made more readily available by honey.

"Glucose is essentially food for our brains," he added. "Or, more precisely, fuel for every cell."

Beekeepers question point of continuing

Consumer research commissioned by beekeepers likewise points to changing habits, with no growth in consumer numbers in sight.

"It's hard to be a beekeeper when people will come up to you at fairs and cheerfully tell you, 'I don't eat honey anymore!'" Mägit said, admitting that these shifts have prompted questions about the future of beekeeping itself.

"There's really no point in producing a food product that's considered a public health risk or talking about pollination if it's no longer needed," he continued. "Professional beekeepers waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel that doesn't even exist have gradually taken on side jobs that have become their main jobs, only still keeping bees out of habit more than anything else."

Mägit said the EU has a honey committee that was allegedly convened to solve all of Europe's beekeeping problems, but it meets only twice a year and includes major honey packers anyway.

"But if there are no beekeepers, then there are no bees, because honeybees can no longer survive independently in the wild," he added.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and X and never miss an update!