Assessment of Honey Production System in Tunisia

Honey consumption has increased these past years mainly for its sensory properties and health benefits. Therefore, honey is one of the most adulterated food products in the world, through fraudulent production practices, directly (by adding adulterants), or indirectly (bee extra-feeding). Besides the negative economic consequences, this food fraud impairs food safety, food authenticity and quality. In order to assess the honey bee management practices in Tunisia, a survey was conducted in main Tunisian regions producing honey in 80 beekeeping units from March 2021 to April 2022, through face-to-face interviewing. It collected information on demographic data, production systems and management practices. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive analysis. All of interviewed beekeepers owned modern hives (Langstroth type). The average honey yield per year/colony was about 10 kg for most of the respondents. This might be due to climate conditions (drought 91.3%) and to application of pesticides and herbicide (36.3%). Honey can be harvested more than 4 times (50%) in a year, while in some cases, twice (6.3%) or 3 (25%) or 4 (18.8%) times/year. All interviewed beekeepers practice transhumance. The location of the bee hives is chosen according to mainly melliferous potential (78.5%). In addition, 98.7% of the respondents are providing supplementary feed, mainly in winter (100%) and autumn (53.3%). Surprisingly 5.3% of respondents declared to keep artificial feeding during springtime, when nectar is naturally available in Tunisia, suggesting a fraudulent practice according to APIMONDIA. The supplementary feeds, mainly sugar syrup and dough (90.8%), are distributed twice a month (98.5%). Only 56.6% beekeepers declared to keep records (breeding register and honey book) documenting their treatment and production processes in order to ascertain authenticity of honey. Beekeeping experience, education, level and unit size have significant effects on honey bee management practices. These results are a valuable contribution to the characterization of the honeybee best management practices in Tunisia and point out the need to reinforce control measures on traceability. Development of digital solutions to ensure food traceability and authenticity project would create and build trust between consumers and consumers and beekeepers. In this context, this work was supported by EU program for Research and Innovation solutions in the Mediterranean region PRIMA-MEDIFIT (2020–2023).