Kherson oblast is an area deeply scarred by war, where the air was poisoned with gunpowder and fear for a long time. The occupation, intense hostilities, landmines in the fields, and the environmental disaster following the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant brought local residents to the brink of survival.
Beekeepers were among those who took a devastating hit. For most of them, an apiary is not just a business or a source of income, but a lifelong passion and the foundation for their family’s livelihood. Yet, despite shot-up beehives, burned homes, and mined fields, farmers are returning to their native ashes.
Living under Russian occupation became a test at the limits of human endurance. Local residents faced outright looting, lawlessness, and violence.
The family apiary of Mykola and his son Ivan has been their life’s work for over 10 years. When the offensive began, the son evacuated the family, while Mykola stayed behind under constant shelling to care for his bedridden 84-year-old father. While Mykola was grieving the loss of his father, who passed away in August 2022, Russian soldiers continued their pillaging.
“They told me, ‘You have good honey. We need a barrel of honey.’ They took a huge barrel! They needed the honey to brew moonshine… They looted everything—from machinery to food—sparing nothing,”recalls Mykola.
Anatolii from Velyka Oleksandrivka, who has been engaged in beekeeping since 1983, tearfully recalls the aftermath of the severe storm that swept through Kherson oblast in 2020, causing heavy losses and forcing him to start over. Then, in June 2022, following the start of the full-scale war, Russian soldiers destroyed his farm, which numbered over 150 bee colonies.
“These are the consequences of them shooting at the hives. These are division boards—see how they were shot clean through. They burned down this forest and shot up the hives. In May, during natural swarming, the entire forest was buzzing, the apiary was black with bees, and they just destroyed everything, burned it all…”said Anatolii.
When the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the right bank of Kherson oblast, people began returning home. They found destroyed houses, scorched earth, and ashes where their apiaries once stood.
However, even under such conditions, Ukrainian farmers find solutions that amaze with their ingenuity. In the village of Davydiv Brid, 30-year-old Anastasiia, along with her husband and five children, returned to the ashes of their family home just before New Year’s Eve. Russian soldiers had killed her mother, burned the hives, looted their property, and destroyed the house.
To restore the farm, Anastasiia’s husband used what the Russians left behind—wooden crates from Russian artillery shells:
“There was nothing to make hives out of, so my husband took the wooden shell crates that the Russians left behind after the occupation and repurposed them into new beehives. We still have them today. Let at least something good come out of them now,”Anastasiia recalls.
The war changed not only daily life, but also agricultural practices themselves. Due to constant shelling, the threat of enemy FPV drones, and mined fields, traditional migratory beekeeping has become deadly. Furthermore, farmers are forced to spray fields with chemicals during the day rather than at night to avoid becoming targets for drones, leading to the mass poisoning of foraging bees.
38-year-old Oleh from the settlement of Kalynivske is a physical education teacher who overcame stage IV cancer and dedicated his life to his family and farming. Having lost most of his bees to chemical field treatments and forced relocation, he found an innovative solution: he repurposed his apiary to pollinate his own greenhouses.
Instead of buying expensive imported bumblebees for greenhouse farming, Oleh started placing his own honeybees inside the greenhouses:
“I adapted a bit: instead of bumblebees, I bring honeybees into the greenhouse, and they pollinate everything. Honey production is tough right now, so we use the bees primarily for pollination. They help us immensely in the greenhouse, and then we sell the harvest—that’s how we make a living for the family.”said Oleh.
This allowed him to keep the bee colonies safe and significantly increase the yield of greenhouse vegetables, providing the family with a stable income during the war.
Restoring an apiary from scratch requires substantial financial investment. Purchasing sugar for feeding, beeswax foundation for building new combs, and paint to protect the wood from weather conditions—all of this becomes an unbearable burden for people who have lost everything.
Thanks to grant support from the “Livelihoods” sector of DCA-NCA in partnership with the “Peaceful Heaven of Kharkiv” Charitable Foundation and financial backing from Danida, 164 households received critically needed resources—ranging from sugar syrup and high-quality paint to beeswax foundation—valued at over $80,000. This allowed them not only to preserve their bee colonies, but also to support the recovery of the entire community’s agricultural sector.
Today, beekeepers in Kherson oblast are not only rebuilding their own farms, but also creating strong ties with local agricultural producers. Farmers allocate land to beekeepers for planting melliferous crops (such as phacelia), and in return, the bees pollinate fields of rapeseed, watermelons, tomatoes, and vegetables.
This synergy proves that the main strength of Ukrainians against destruction and chaos lies in humanity, diligence, and mutual support. Thanks to the joint efforts of local communities, peaceful life is gradually returning to the liberated lands of Kherson oblast, and the life-affirming hum of bees can once again be heard over the revived orchards.
