Beekeepers from all over the country are staging a nationwide protest in front of the Agriculture Ministry headquarters in Sofia on Friday.

Industry representatives insist that the authorities fulfill their demands, including banning daily sprayings of crops with plant protection products, which kills a large part of the bees, increasing subsidies per hive, and exercising stringent control and enforcing strict penalties so as to prevent thefts of beehives.

Beekeepers, as cited by Darik radio, point out that the requirement for registration as agricultural producer and the payment of insurance of BGN 800 a year in order to receive a subsidy of around BGN 300 results in a situation in which over 50% of honey producers operated in the informal sector.

In February 2015, Bulgarian beekeepers complained that bees had completely disappeared from some regions of the country.

They informed that bee mortality had reached 100% in the Burgas district, while in Pleven and Kyustendil cases of unmotivated abandonment of beehives had been registered.