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After Bears Kept Coming To This Man’s Bee Farm To Steal Honey, He Decided To Turn Them Into Honey Tasters
Bears simply love honey and it’s not surprising that they go to extreme lengths to get some of it. In fact, they love it so much that they can’t resist raiding beehives and cause a true headache for many beekeepers. These adorable apex predators are very common guests at many bee farms, yet they are very unwelcome as the damages they cause are sometimes worth thousands. However, many beekeepers, such as Ibrahim Sedef, try their best to keep them away from beehives.
More info: dha.com.tr
Image credits: DHA
According to DHA, Ibrahim Sedef lives in Trabzon, Turkey, and is an agricultural engineer who works in beekeeping. For quite some time, Sedef has been struggling to prevent lickerish bears from trashing the hives in an attempt to get that precious honey.
Image credits: DHA
To protect the hives, he tried to secure them by putting metal cages around them. Sedef also tried leaving food such as bread, fruit, and honey in an attempt to prevent bears from treating themselves to snacks directly from the hives. However, that didn’t work well and some hives still got damaged.
Image credits: DHA
So, the beekeeper decided to learn more about the bears’ movement and behavior. He did that by installing photo trap cameras to track the bears roaming his bee farm.
Image credits: DHA
While trying to figure out how to outsmart these greedy animals, Sedef came up with a brilliant idea.
Image credits: DHA
He decided to turn these bears into honey tasters because they clearly have a good taste for honey.
Image credits: DHA
The beekeeper set up a table with 4 kinds of honey for the bears to feast on. He wasn’t disappointed with the result. As it turns out, bears have quite an expensive taste.
Image credits: DHA
Sedef told DHA that bears were drawn by the smell of Anzer honey as they always tasted it first, sometimes without even touching the cherry blossom honey.
Image credits: DHA
2 pounds of the famous Turkish honey, Anzer, sells for more than $300.
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Here’s how people reacted
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What do you think ?
Night Owl 5 years ago (edited)
He should add "Tested by bear" or "Approved by bear" on labels :D Also, I'm impressed by the little bears' climbing skills at the end of the video
Shannon Richards 5 years ago
This is way cool. Someone please translate (add subtitles) to the youtube vidoe?
Koray Kırcaoğlu 5 years ago (edited)
-There was only one big guy 3 years ago then he called for his whole family. Now I’m taking care of 5 big guys. --- -Speaker; Agricultural engineer Ibrahim Sedef, this time used bear for testing his product. He used 4 different honeys, their first time choice was anger honey, they didn’t even pick cherry one. -- Ibrahim Sedef: -This is Anzer Honey, let’s see if he going to find best one. -Big guy, tonight will be doing quality check, and I left some apples too. Bon appetite. - My man come here! -He came this way, tried Anzer first, I was in container back there, he was checking on me, as soon as I opened the door fleed right away, he can come back I should go back to container. Next day: Let’s see if he is going to pick in same order. In order first he chose anzer, then flower then chestnut honey but didn’t care about cherry. If he picks in same order then test results are will be more valid. Tonight I’ll change the order of honeys. Next Day: I added pine honey to menu (talking about
Load More Replies...
Michelle Muirhead 5 years ago
What a great person. Didn’t kill the bears, he has encouraged them to stop destroying his hives and put their tremendous taste buds to good use:)
Teresa Taylor 5 years ago
I didn’t understand a word said; however his excitement was obvious. This experiment was fascinating to watch. The bear zoned in on those two types of honey, in the same order each time, no matter where the bowls were placed. I also liked having the apples to “cleanse the palette.” That made me laugh, especially since the bear was a much daintier eater than many humans I know. Did you notice only once did s/he spill a bowl?
Oscar Jeong 4 years ago
One can lure them to taste the beer. Which beer the bear likes the most?
Kamil Mingu 5 years ago
They say, an animal what can eat thay you can eat with fearless. So I'm going to eat my cat's dried cat food as snacks.
Suzanne Harris 5 years ago
This feels staged to me. If you know anything about bear biology, you know that they don't hit hives for the honey. They're going for the larvae and eggs, with the occasional adult thrown in. They are stocking up for winter. Sugars like honey don't do them any good whereas the protein and fat in the bees is what they are after. They likely are going for the honey that has the most bee bits in it.
Adrijana Radosevic 5 years ago (edited)
As fun as this is, this is incredibly dangerous for the bears as they are getting used to human presence, human scent and being close to human habitat. Such bears rarely end up well 😔 Seriously, somebody inform this engineer that for about 50+ years now we had electric wiring systems designed to keep animals such as bears out of our beehives and orchards. No need to be invent the wheel, 1 car battery and a small solar panel and you're good to go for years on end. And yes, they're harmless for animals as well as humans, it's just unpleasant.
Marie-Stephane Art 5 years ago
I was very surprise by one reaction: "pasteurized honey"!? Really? There is such a thing? It's sooo unholy... (I'm french by the way pasteurized anything is weird for us but honey it's sacrilegious) But I love the idea of bear tester, it's cool, and so much better than fight.
Artex Gorilla 5 years ago
I'd love to walk up to a big bear and give them a big squeeze and boop their nose. The second before death by mauling would be really nice.
Mónica Elisabeth Sacco 5 years ago
OMG! Such a clever, nice idea! Truly, nobody could have better "blenders" around the world!
Night Owl 5 years ago (edited)
He should add "Tested by bear" or "Approved by bear" on labels :D Also, I'm impressed by the little bears' climbing skills at the end of the video
Shannon Richards 5 years ago
This is way cool. Someone please translate (add subtitles) to the youtube vidoe?
Koray Kırcaoğlu 5 years ago (edited)
-There was only one big guy 3 years ago then he called for his whole family. Now I’m taking care of 5 big guys. --- -Speaker; Agricultural engineer Ibrahim Sedef, this time used bear for testing his product. He used 4 different honeys, their first time choice was anger honey, they didn’t even pick cherry one. -- Ibrahim Sedef: -This is Anzer Honey, let’s see if he going to find best one. -Big guy, tonight will be doing quality check, and I left some apples too. Bon appetite. - My man come here! -He came this way, tried Anzer first, I was in container back there, he was checking on me, as soon as I opened the door fleed right away, he can come back I should go back to container. Next day: Let’s see if he is going to pick in same order. In order first he chose anzer, then flower then chestnut honey but didn’t care about cherry. If he picks in same order then test results are will be more valid. Tonight I’ll change the order of honeys. Next Day: I added pine honey to menu (talking about
Load More Replies... Michelle Muirhead 5 years ago
What a great person. Didn’t kill the bears, he has encouraged them to stop destroying his hives and put their tremendous taste buds to good use:)
Teresa Taylor 5 years ago
I didn’t understand a word said; however his excitement was obvious. This experiment was fascinating to watch. The bear zoned in on those two types of honey, in the same order each time, no matter where the bowls were placed. I also liked having the apples to “cleanse the palette.” That made me laugh, especially since the bear was a much daintier eater than many humans I know. Did you notice only once did s/he spill a bowl?
Oscar Jeong 4 years ago
One can lure them to taste the beer. Which beer the bear likes the most?
Kamil Mingu 5 years ago
They say, an animal what can eat thay you can eat with fearless. So I'm going to eat my cat's dried cat food as snacks.
Suzanne Harris 5 years ago
This feels staged to me. If you know anything about bear biology, you know that they don't hit hives for the honey. They're going for the larvae and eggs, with the occasional adult thrown in. They are stocking up for winter. Sugars like honey don't do them any good whereas the protein and fat in the bees is what they are after. They likely are going for the honey that has the most bee bits in it.
Adrijana Radosevic 5 years ago (edited)
As fun as this is, this is incredibly dangerous for the bears as they are getting used to human presence, human scent and being close to human habitat. Such bears rarely end up well 😔 Seriously, somebody inform this engineer that for about 50+ years now we had electric wiring systems designed to keep animals such as bears out of our beehives and orchards. No need to be invent the wheel, 1 car battery and a small solar panel and you're good to go for years on end. And yes, they're harmless for animals as well as humans, it's just unpleasant.
Marie-Stephane Art 5 years ago
I was very surprise by one reaction: "pasteurized honey"!? Really? There is such a thing? It's sooo unholy... (I'm french by the way pasteurized anything is weird for us but honey it's sacrilegious) But I love the idea of bear tester, it's cool, and so much better than fight.
Artex Gorilla 5 years ago
I'd love to walk up to a big bear and give them a big squeeze and boop their nose. The second before death by mauling would be really nice.
Mónica Elisabeth Sacco 5 years ago
OMG! Such a clever, nice idea! Truly, nobody could have better "blenders" around the world!
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