HONEY farmers are being urged to increase their production to meet the local demand.
Ministry of Agriculture's apiculture national coordinator Kamal Prasad said the demand for honey continued to rise even as production output grew.
He estimated that by the end of this year around 500 tonnes of honey will be produced, matching last year's local demand.
Demand is expected to increase to around 800 tonnes in the next two years.
Last year, Mr Prasad said around 494 tonnes of honey was produced, an increase of 65.78 per cent from the 298 tonnes produced in 2006.
"There are about 800 honey farmers with close to 10,000 beehives around the country with the potential to increase their hive numbers to 50,000."
Mr Prasad said there had been a big demand from individuals, hotels and hospitals.
"There has been an increase in the hotel sector demand for honey and the most important thing is there has been vast increase in the consumption of honey by all other ethnic groups especially the indigenous group," he said.
"There has been continuous awareness programs on honey consumption with food and other medicinal products," he said.
"Honey can be used with biscuits, Wheatbix, honey chocolate, honey in coffee, honey in milkshake, honey in juice and honey used in hospitals for dressing purposes," said Mr Prasad.
On wholesale honey is selling from $5 to $7 per kilogram while 750ml bottles sell from $10 to $15. Mr Prasad said the ministry aimed to produce good quality organic honey since and does not recommend the use of chemicals in hives.
"Overseas antibiotics are used to control diseases in beehives."
He believed that good management practices had enabled farmers to produce more honey per hive.
Last year around 40 kilograms of honey was produced per hive, compared to 30 kilograms of honey per hive in 2006.
That was possible from the effective training programs on hive and apiary management and hive manipulation techniques, Mr Prasad said.
"In the dry zone honey is harvested three to four times per year whereas in the wetter zone honey is harvested twice a year," he added. "Hive manipulation technique speeds up the activities of the bees in putting honey into the frames which has proved good over the years and farmers have applied the techniques to increase production.
"Even though honey production is mainly based in the Western and Northern divisions last year we educated and trained farmers in the areas such as Kadavu, Ovalau, Keiyasi (interior of Sigatoka valley), Veidrala (interior of Ra) and Lakeba in the Lau Group," Mr Prasad said.
Mr Prasad said 10 small holder projects were established last year with five bee hives each and around 20 training programs were conducted and attended by about 600 farmers.
He added there are no serious bee diseases in Fiji.