Dmytro Lobach has been engaged in beekeeping for 19 years. In 2004, he started from scratch: he bred bees and made hives himself, and his brother and father helped extract honey. Before the large-scale war, his apiary had more than 130 bee families, and his clients included people from all over Ukraine. Dmytro paid special attention to the selection and dissemination of the Ukrainian steppe breed of bees.

When the full-scale war began, Dmytro’s apiary was in the combat zone and was destroyed by artillery shelling. The house and yard were also damaged. Under constant shelling, only a few surviving hives and some equipment could be evacuated.