Med Karpat apiary, Khust

The Papp family apiary

Med Karpat is the Papp family's beekeeping business in Khust, with a history of more than forty years. The family got its first bee colony at the end of August 1980, bought from beekeeper Petro Hrytsko of Koshelevo village. Since then the small home apiary has grown into one of the largest beekeeping farms in Zakarpattia, with more than 1,000 colonies of the selected Carpathian bee of the "Synevyr" type. It is run by scientist and professional beekeeper Viktor Papp, who has worked for years to preserve the purebred Carpathian bee.

Why go and how to buy

In Khust, at 14 Lesi Ukrainky Street, the farm has its production unit and a product showroom, where you can see the whole range, ask about the varieties and choose honey for yourself or as a gift. The showroom's hours are not given on the website, so arrange your visit by phone or Viber. Tours of the apiaries themselves are not offered: the hives migrate across the mountains and their sites change with the season. If you cannot drop by, honey and bee products can be ordered from the medkarpat.com online shop with delivery across Ukraine. The farm shares the life of a migratory apiary — moving up to the high pastures, rearing queens, harvesting — on its own YouTube channel.

What to taste and buy

True mountain honey can only be made by taking the hives to Carpathian virgin forests, clearings and high pastures. Over two decades of migratory beekeeping the team has developed its own equipment and techniques for moving apiaries across difficult terrain, and later the apiaries move back down to the Tysa lowlands. So the Med Karpat range covers every zone of Zakarpattia, from the valley to the pastures:

• honey: early spring, May, Transcarpathian summer, high-mountain, wild, bilberry honey and comb honey;
• bee products: pollen, bee bread, propolis, wax and cappings;
• honey blends, dragées and propolis tinctures;
• mead "Medunka Karpat" and "Sribna Zemlia", creams and balms, beeswax candles.

Everything is made in the farm's own small workshop, legalised in 2012 and re-equipped in 2021 to HACCP and ISO 22000:2019 standards. The Carpathian bee is a local breed — calm, winter-hardy and frugal — and preserving it is seen as an important part of Transcarpathian beekeeping, where honey has long been medicine, gift and festive food.

Practical information

• Address: 14 Lesi Ukrainky St, Khust — production and product showroom.
• Phones / Viber: +380974605891, +380685317690, +380956116833.
• Online: medkarpat.com online shop with delivery across Ukraine; Facebook page medkarpat.
• Hours: not published — check the time of your visit by phone.
• Getting there: Khust is on the Mukachevo–Rakhiv road near the Tysa. Khust station has trains from Uzhhorod, Lviv and Kyiv; from the station or bus station take a taxi to Lesi Ukrainky Street.
• Tip: if you are taking honey a long way, ask for the jars to be packed tightly — useful on winding mountain roads.

Please confirm by phone before your trip.

Website and social media: medkarpat.com · facebook.com · youtube.com

Photos: medkarpat.com.