On February 7, 2023, Rector of Sumy National Agrarian University held a honey tasting. Volodymyr Ladyka comments: “I was inspired by the meeting with the head of the livestock cluster of the KERNEL company. Beekeeping is one of the income items of the animal husbandry service. Today KERNEL keeps more than a thousand hives. The main income is actually not honey, but the provision of agribusiness services for field pollination. If you count the economy, the profit is big. Our event is devoted to the popularization of beekeeping. The second thing that motivated me was the arrival of Academician Ostap Zhukorskyi, a secretary of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, who is currently investigating the impact of military operations on the ecology of agriculture in communities. Bee is the best indicator of the study of environmental sustainability. I am sure that the development of beekeeping will become one of the promising directions at our university.”
Viktoriia Vechorka, Dean of the Biological and Technological Faculty, which trains specialists in animal husbandry, including beekeeping, to the question “Why is a bee in the focus of the scales?” makes a convincing argument: “…the international environmental organization Earth Observers stated that the bee is the most important animal for the preservation of the planet’s ecosystem. Why an animal? Because according to the scientific classification, a bee belongs to the animal kingdom. And like any other species, they provide us with a wide range of products: honey, wax, propolis, bee venom, royal jelly, bee pollen tincture.”
The tasting procedure was “blind” (the tasters did not know whose honey it was). The winner was determined according to the following criteria: color, consistency, crystallization, signs of fermentation, taste, aroma, mechanical impurities.
Nataliia Bolhova, Dean of the Faculty of Food Technologies, impressed her opinion: “I liked a sample number two, according to the results of the tasting, it matches the indicators that honey should have. In my opinion, honey is one of the products that people should consume, especially after 45 years old.”
Olha Bakumenko, Dean of the Faculty of Agrotechnologies and Natural Resource Management, agrees with the words of Nataliia Bolhova, whose favorite sample was number two.
Mykola Kovalenko, Vice-rector for Academic Work, says: “I enjoy beekeeping. I have 11 families. I liked a sample number 2 most of all. Everything about it is perfect: color, taste and consistency.”
So, the leading position took a sample of honey from KERNEL. The second place was shared by samples Burchak from Stara Huta, Shostka community, each of the samples got 32 points. The third place took a sample of honey from Putyvl.
