More than 100 beekeepers not only from Transcarpathia, but also from Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnitsky, Ternopil come to Mukachevo for the annual fair «Honey Festival» and participate in the open-air fair. On the main square of the city, where the fair is held, you can usually find everything: different kinds of honey — acacia, chestnut, buckwheat, field, steppe, forest, mountain and wild bee honey, as well as other bee products — perga, propolis, milk of pistils, bee tea, honey beeswax and honey mixes and many others. Women are more interested in sweet natural product, men — in hot drinks infused with honey. For a liter of honey at the fair they ask from 50 to 120 hryvnias. Tasting is free, the main thing is not to burst.
«We organize a «Honey Festival» every year at the end of the honey harvest season. It is nice that we have not forgotten one of the oldest traditional activities of the Ukrainian people, nowadays the popularity of beekeeping is growing, even the economic crisis has not prevented it. And at such festivals there is something to learn. Experienced beekeepers pass the baton to young beekeepers.
People willingly try honey from acacia and linden, mixed herbs, melon, buckwheat, chestnut. Tables quickly become empty. However, last year brought Ukrainian beekeepers a lot of honey. In spite of inclement weather and stormy weather, beekeepers from Transcarpathia collected 200 kg of honey from the hive.
And Lviv beekeepers brought about a ton of honey from Mukachev, and sold more than half of it in two days. There is a great demand for honey kvass, and fragrant drinking honey: mead, honey wine and balm on honey. Although strong honey products are not cheap: a small glass — 6-10 hryvnia, and for 70-degree mead — queues. Good 70-degree mead is made from perga, and to make it strong — insist the drink at least three years. For treatment, use it 25-grams daily and you will forget about diseases.
The «Honey Festival» also offers a variety of beekeeping products and even hives with bee families.
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And the shapes of wax candles are amazingly diverse: from a little angel to beehives, Christmas trees and animal figures made by beekeepers.
Honey as a therapeutic agent is much more effective than a huge number of antibiotics. It is known that it was used by Romans, Celts, Slavs, whose traditions have been preserved in Transcarpathia. European scientists after a long monitoring have scientifically proved that the honey of the Carpathian bee is the highest quality honey in Europe and the most effective of all when used in cooking and therapy. Not without reason there is a monument to the bee and beekeepers in Transcarpathia.