Fahd Bin Abdulaziz Bin Muammar, Governor of Taif, inaugurated the first honey and butter festival here on Tuesday. About 30 producers of honey and cooking butter from Taif, Al-Baha, Riyadh and Qassim, are exhibiting their summer and winter honey products at the four-day festival. The event is organized by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. After the inauguration, Governor Bin Muammar was briefed on various types of honey, including summer honey which is the most popular and is of two types – white honey obtained from mountain beehives and Al-Somra honey from lowland trees. Winter honey is usually sold in the market at the beginning of Ramadan. The governor also witnessed a demonstration of extracting honey from beehives on tree trunks and was acquainted with efforts to preserve the local beekeeping industry. The visitors showed immense interest in the modern methods of honey production. Maqboul Bin Saed Al-Talhi, a major honey producer and head of the Saudi Beekeeping Industry Association's branch in Taif, said the city's honey market is the largest in the Kingdom, noting that beekeepers bring honey in large quantities to the market every morning and sell it at a public auction. These days, he said, the honey market is thriving, noting that summer white honey is sold for SR500 to SR700 per kg. Homoud Mastour Al-Tuwairqi, Director of the Ministry of Agriculture's branch in Taif, said beehives in the governorate number more than 135,000 and produce 100 to 120 tons of the finest honey every year. These beehives include 85,000 traditional ones, 5,000 modern, fixed ones and 50,000 mobile beehives that are moved around the region to locations where trees and flowering plants grow.
