Bee Farm Owner Catches Bears Stealing Honey, Turns Them Into Honey Tasters

The bears do know their stuff!

Ibrahim Sedef tried his best to keep the bears away from the hives, but to no avail.
He placed several varieties of honey on a table and observed which one the bears will favor.
The bears do know their stuff because they chose the most expensive honey.

This is proof that Winnie the Pooh’s obsession for honey is based in real life. A beekeeper in Turkey couldn’t keep bears from helping themselves to his precious supply.

However, he managed to turn a problematic situation into an advantage. He made the bears his personal honey taster!

Ibrahim Sedef is an agricultural engineer who lives in Trabzon, Turkey. He works in beekeeping and one of his biggest concerns is preventing bears from thrashing his hives.

See, bears love honey SO much! They are not above invading bee farms and raiding the hives just so they can get their precious supply.

This causes headaches for beekeepers because the bears can cause damages worth thousands.

Sedef did everything he could to protect the hives by building metal cages. He also left food like fruit and bread to distract the attention of the bears from the hives.

“I put outside several kinds of bread. For instance, there’s a kind of Trabzon-style bran bread prepared with whole wheat. It has always been their first choice among different breads. Their second choice is the sourdough bread, and their last choice is the bread bought from the market,” Sedef told Turkish daily Hürriyet.

He also left honey in containers hoping it would stop the bears from snacking directly from the hives.

All this did not work. The beekeeper decided to use the bears’ tendencies in his favor. He observed their movement and behavior through photo trap cameras that he installed around the farm.

He came up with a brilliant idea to use the bears’ taste buds…

…and made them taste different varieties of honey, which he placed on a table for the bear to spot.

Sedef discovered that the bears do know their stuff.

They always taste the Anzar honey first and sometimes did not even bother with the cherry blossom honey. Anzar honey, also known as Anzer Bali, is one of the best and most expensive.