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Numbers of beekeepers : 12.000
% Of professional beekeepers : 30
% Of pluriactive : 60
% of amatorials: 10
Number of hives : 250.000 modern and 6.000 traditional
Types of hives: Ruches à cadre du type Langstroth
Average production per hive: 12 kg/modern hive and 5 Kg/traditional hive in normal years
Sedentary beekeeping: Yes, for the traditional hives and for little beekeepers (familiar apiaries)
Transhumant beekeeping: Yes, for the medium and big producers with more than 50 hives
Average distance of transhumance: 150 km
National production of honey: 3.000 tons/year
Domestic consumption: 99 %
Average consumption per inhabitant:
Exported production: Minimum quantities to be verified with INST
Diversity of honey products:tens
Pollination of crops: Not quantified (arboriculture and industrial and aromatic plants)
Pollen production: marginalized and individual
Royal jelly production: marginalized and individual
Intoxication problems: sometimes yes (particularly in intensive agriculture)
If yes, which are the crops at risks: citrus and legumes

Other characteristics of the country:
A modern beekeeping sector in good expansion compared to the traditional sector after the incentives of the State since the seventies;
Lack of professional organisations;
Existence of different institutions and services (bee's health, training and dissemination and support to research..);
Lack of technology for the valorization and transformation of the hive products;
Just one subspecies, the local bee APIS M.INTERMISSA;
Existence of a Tunisian specific law for honey (NT 56-12, 2007);
A Tunisian law concerning bee wax is in progress.

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