It’s no secret that bears love honey.
Therefore, the upcoming story wouldn’t surprise you as much. Well, at least not in terms of the bear side of the story. Bears typically go out of their way to raid beehives in order to find their beloved honey once again.
Without a doubt, this causes massive inconveniences for beekeepers as the damages the honey-loving bears cause could potentially be worth thousands. Therefore, many beekeepers try their best to keep these unwanted guests away from the beehive.
Ibrahim Sedef’s story is an interesting example of the abovementioned efforts.
The Turkish agricultural engineer and beekeeper, who lives in Trabzon, Turkey, had struggled with ‘bear visits’ for quite some time.
He has tried a couple of tactics in order to protect his hives- he has put metal cages around them, he has provided other food like bread and fruits, and even honey for the bears in order to keep them away from destroying the beehives.
Unfortunately, all these efforts were in vain.
Therefore, after all his failed attempts, the creative beekeeper was determined to understand more about the bears’ behavior.
In order to do so, he installed photo trap cameras on his bee farm (footage of which you have the chance to see in this article).
While trying to figure out how to deal with the ‘bear nuisance’, Sedef suddenly came up with an ingenious plan. The plan was the following: to turn the bears into ‘honey tasters’.
After all, they do have a great test in honey, some may even call them professionals in their said area of expertise.
Consequently, the Turkish beekeeper put together a fairly big table and selected 4 kinds of honey to put on it for the bear’s pleasant surprise. The result was indeed worth it, as it appears bears have an expensive taste.
But, I mean, would you guess otherwise?
Sedef found out that bears were mainly tempted by the scent of Anzer honey, as they always ‘investigated’ it before any other kind.
To make it clear, 2 pounds of Anzer, which is a popular Turkish honey, costs over $300. So, you can draw your conclusions as to how expensive a bears taste can be.
Professionals in their area of expertise, indeed.
