Snezana Ilievska

Move the photo in all directions for a better view of the apiary.

Photo: Emli Bendixen

My name is Snezhana Ilievska, a beekeeper, born in 1982 in the village of Dulica, while today I live in Makedonska Kamenica.

I started raising bees in 2017 when I attended for the first time a lecture on beekeeping in my town, without having a single bee and not knowing anything about them. At the lecture I learned about the basic training for young beekeepers of the Nature Conservation Programme, so I applied to participate. The following year I completed the advanced training organised by the same project. I got my first three honey bee colonies from the Programme and today I have two apiaries, with around 67 bee colonies, at two locations in the village of Dulica. I practice sustainable beekeeping, with great responsibility to nature and people’s health, without the use of damaging chemicals. My apiaries are located in a beautiful area, with an abundance of black locust, paliurus, wild thyme, meadows and forests, so the honey is a mix of meadow and forest honey.

In the future I plan to produce royal jelly, pollen, swarms and bee venom. At the apiary at the site Velideno, in Dulica, I plan a small apitherapy centre to promote beekeeping and the health benefits from bees.

I am also a supporter of urban beekeeping; my first apiary with four honey bee colonies was on my balcony. That feeling when you have a cup of coffee among the beehives on the balcony, watching the bees work early in the morning, flying into the hive with pollen on their legs, encourages me to keep raising bees in my home.