The president of the agricultural organization Asaja Extremadura, Ángel García Blanco, has warned of an increase in the "fraud" in honey, after detecting the entry into the Spanish market of syrup coming from China that arrives via Portugal, so that imported product from the Asian country would be labeled in the neighboring country as if it were honey.
As García Blanco detailed this Thursday, the European fraud office has determined that 47% of the honey that reaches the European Union is not really, a figure that rises to 51% in the case of Spain. 74% of the batches coming from China and 93% of the Turkish ones "are fraud," he said, because "they are adulterated with syrup and they sell it to us as pure honey."
The head of Asaja Extremadura has underscored that China continues to be the second non-EU country from which Spain imports honey, although the volume has been reduced by almost 38% compared to the previous year and "only" 3,995 tons were acquired in 2025. "And this is where comes the great fraud," he denounced.
In parallel, during the first half of 2026 Spain has bought 8,067 tons of honey from Portugal at an average price of 1.55 euros/kg. At the same time, "curiously" China has sold 5,648 tons to Portugal in that same period at a price of 1.08 euros per kilo.
With the new regulations on honey labeling, which require indicating the country of origin and the percentage of each one, "it turns out that curiously Chinese honey automatically becomes honey from Portugal," the president of the agricultural organization criticized.
"And for the big lovers of the agreement with Mercosur, a fact: in 2025 Argentina was the fifth non-EU country that exported honey to us. In the first six months of 2026 it has risen to second position and has placed 3,724 tons with us at a price of 2.22 euros per kilogram when producing it here costs almost 5 euros," he lamented.
García Blanco reproached that while all this is happening, "the Government of Spain is looking the other way," and therefore he urged consumers to "act accordingly" and, when buying honey, check the country of origin and acquire it "when the origin is exclusively Spain" so that "they don't give you a cat instead of a rabbit."
Declining beekeeping production and threats to the sector
As for the beekeeping census situation, he has pointed out that, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, there are 2,741,000 hives in Spain, which implies that in just five years 360,000 have been lost. Cáceres continues as the leading producing province with 321,000 hives, followed by Badajoz with 305,000, Salamanca with 209,000, and, next, Valencia with 165,000.
García Blanco has also said that national production has gone from 36,390 tons in 2018 to 29,350 in 2025, which, in his view, shows the strategic weight of the beekeeping sector in Extremadura and its role as a population-retention tool in two very specific areas: the Caceres region of Las Hurdes and the surroundings of Fuenlabrada de los Montes, in the Badajoz part of the Sierra Siberia.
He has also recalled that during the recent Las Hurdes Beekeeping and Tourism Fair (Apithur), the serious problems that the sector is grappling with were highlighted and that "they are already known to everyone," in the words of the agricultural leader.
"At least the beekeepers received the good news of the aid they are going to receive from the Junta de Extremadura in view of the Ministry’s inaction of almost eight million euros.
In relation to Varroa, a disease that affects hives, García Blanco has criticized that laboratories "do nothing but sell products of limited effectiveness since they have already become resistant, that’s true while lining their pockets at the expense of beekeepers instead of investigating new molecules".
Hives are also threatened by the bee-eater, "a very pretty bird, which already kills almost 30% of the hives," he indicated. "This is like what happens with the wolf: either we regulate its presence in some way and it stops being a protected species, or it makes beekeepers disappear," he added, while warning about the increasingly greater presence of Asian and velutina wasps, which also destroy hives.