Beekeeping Around the World: Turkey

- Hi, everybody and welcome to Beekeeping Around the World.

Today, it's February 27th, 2025, and today we are gonna be talking about beekeeping in Turkey.

So let me share my screen and show you where we are in our series this year.

So for the 2025 series, there are six webinars.

We're in the fourth one today, so we have already recorded live webinars about France, the Yukon territory, and elephants and bees in Kenya.

All of those are now available for free on the extension website.

So you can see that at the top of the screen, extension.psu.edu.

And if you search for Beekeeping Around the World, you'll find these and the recordings of the previous years.

So today we're gonna be talking about Turkey and then we have two more Thursdays at noon eastern.

Next week we'll be talking about India and after that stingless bees in Brazil.

So please go ahead and register for those so you can get the Zoom link.

And of course these are being recorded so that we can share them online afterwards.

And as I said, we do have a closed captioner here with us who is captioning live, so that's much better than AI. (chuckles)

So thanks for being here.

Today our speaker is Cahit Ozturk.

He is a research technologist and associate research professor at Arizona State University.

He has three decades of experience in beekeeping, having worked extensively in research, teaching and extension as well as commercial beekeeping in Turkey for 20 years.

Dr. Ozturk earned his PhD in bee genetics and breeding from Cukurova University in Turkey.

And since joining Arizona State University in 2014, he has contributed to projects on honeybee learning and behavior while also teaching beekeeping courses.

And his experience includes colony management, queen rearing, royal jelly production, in vitro bee rearing, that sounds very difficult, breeding, hygienic behavior selection and instrumental insemination.

So he's got many beekeeping skills and I'm excited to have him here today to tell us all about what beekeeping is like in Turkey.

- Thank you for great introduction and again, my name is Cahit Ozturk.

Hi, everyone.

I don't know where you are from joining this presentation.

And my name is Cahit Ozturk, I'm from Arizona State University and I will be giving an introductory beekeeping presentation for Turkish beekeeping, about the Turkish beekeeping.

And my contents of presentation are based off on my own experiences for research and commercial beekeeping in 30, 20 years before I move to the United States.

And let me share my screen.

Do you see screen?

Okay, let me make full screen.

Okay, nice.

So this is one of the like picture from the Turkey before I moved to United States.

This is our research center.

I was working for government agriculture ministry research center, like USD style research center.

So these colonies were our research colonies.

We were conducting some experiment, doing some research on them, roughly two, three hundreds depends on the research needs.

And also I was keeping similar numbers hives as my own hive as a part-time job.

And during the weekend or after work hours, I was working with my own colonies.

So this is from 2013 before I moved to United States.

Okay, let's start. (clears throat)

My presentation outline is like this, introduction, history and importance of beekeeping in Turkey.

Unique Turkish beekeeping practices, Turkish honeybee species and their characteristics.

Turkey's unique honey and bee products, Challenges, opportunities in Turkish beekeeping, and Q and A session.

If you search any source on the internet you can find some of the like different sources and they stayed like roughly largest, 10 largest beekeeping industry in the world.

Turkey is the third largest beekeeping population in the world after India and China.

And we have in Turkey roughly a hundred thousand beekeepers or we can consider as a family, the family or enterprises.

And high production population number is almost close to China.

India has more, or let me close my screen, this one.

And roughly more than 10 million but traditional colonies mostly and China and Turkey close, if you look different sources sometimes you can see they're really close numbers.

Around 9 million colonies and total honey production is in Turkey more than 100,000 tons.

Last year I believe it was 120,000 ton.

It makes Turkey second level in the world after China again.

An average honey production per colony is really low compared to like high population, colony population.

It is a little bit under the world average.

I believe world average per colony production is 15 kilogram, which is in the United States sometimes we don't use these metrics, we use pounds.

So roughly I can say if we are joining to this meeting from United States, maybe half medium honey we produced in Turkey.

Turkey has rich beekeeping heritage dating back thousand years and one of the top honey-producing countries globally as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago.

Unique geography and biodiversity supports diverse honey varieties and beekeeping plays a significant role in rural economies and sustainability.

Proposed to share how beekeeping in Turkey stands out with its unique methods and products.

As I mentioned, historical context really go back really late history.

So Hittite civilization 2000 BCE, we have some remainings.

We see those times people working with the honeybees.

You can see hives, skep hives or bees from the tablets and traditional methods have been preserved since then.

And through the generation they transfer and practice historically in forest mountains and rural areas everywhere different.

In Turkey we have seven geographical location and we have multiple cultural remainings in different antonian locations.

Early techniques include log hives and clay pots and skep hives but even still current years and they are in place still.

Some beekeepers keep traditional hives and this is mostly commercial reason because there is belief, it's not scientifically correct and also technically correct but some big consumer think if it is calm honey it's coming...

If it is coming from the like skep hives, log hives or like traditional hives, they think this is more natural, more organic or like not (indistinct) something but sometimes it's not correct.

But there is market still in the world and especially in Turkey still we have those traditional hives.

And honey used for years like food, medicine and religious ceremonies like as for other the world everywhere.

As I mentioned, we have different geographical diversity.

So in Turkey map in the left side you can see we have three geographical like region and each of them unique different than others.

There are mountain size or different landscape and flora and support to beekeeping different season, different time of the year.

So major beekeeping regions coastal area as you see green at the middle and bottom part.

So top map shows like cylinders, honey production.

So if you see greenish location and like gold blocks, so it means honey production higher than other cities or locations and mild and extreme climate support various bee species and our flora are really rich and there are different sources you can check but more than 10,000 plant species and some of them like custom to Turkey Anatolia and major beekeeping region, Aegean, Black Sea, Mediterranean and Anatolia regions.

Each region has distant honey varieties and they're locally specific plants and source support these varieties.

And honey varieties in Turkey I can count at least 10 of them or some of them more important and worldwide known.

Some source we can count or varieties we can count.

If you look the map you can see different parts of the Turkey.

You can see where they can produce those local varieties.

And one of the important one and famous one maybe you have heard pine honey.

Turkey is the major producer of the pine honey.

There are two country, one of them Turkey, second producer is Greece and I believe roughly 90% of the pine honey comes from the Turkey production.

And other common and famous honey varieties we produce a lot in Turkey, chestnut honey and we have small amount citrus honey, lavender honey, thyme honey, sunflower honey, mad honey.

Mad honey also really famous one maybe you have heard or not but there is specific plants on our Black sea region and these mad honey it's really unique as local honeybee colonies can produce more and local people consume maybe more because they used to eat this.

But if you're not familiar with this mad honey, if you eat more than one spoon you can feel really bad, sometimes you can be hospitalized.

So there is grayanotoxin chemical ingredient inside this honey but they use this medicinal honey so they have lot of nutritional inside or some properties to support health condition.

And also we have Erica manipuliflora honey south part of the Turkey and west part of the Turkey.

Especially this is really important source because this plant bloom in the wintertime.

So this support winterizing colonies.

We also in Turkey has lots of genetic diversity and different subspecies and there are some sources they say maybe more than 20 subspecies in the world maybe we can see five, six of them in Turkey.

So at the center we have Anatolia, Apis mellifera anatoliaca major subspecies in Turkey and also we have some west part of the Turkey.

We have different Anatolian varieties and even we can see some Cornice lines on the west north part of the Turkey.

And also we have Caucasian subspecies in our country maybe east north part.

If you see the green area on the east north part of the Turkey and there is Apis mellifera Caucasian, we preserve this in Turkey.

There is a regulation you cannot move your colonies if there's Apis mellifera caucasian colonies keeping those location.

And also south part like southeast we have Syrian and we are Apis mellifera meda like Iranian, Persian bees.

And also we can see different combination like hybrid version of the bees.

And south part sometimes we can see cyberspace, they're really aggressive like Africanized bees.

But this genetic diversity make really unique Turkey condition because they adapted here and for years for resilience and disease resistant, sometimes maybe they will not use much honey as much as like top beekeeping industries in the world.

But they are resistant and they're resilient for local sources.

And queen rearing we have like overpopulation like 9 million colonies and we know we need to change the queen from the colonies every year or every other year.

Depends on the beekeeping style.

If you're commercial beekeeper, most of time we suggest every year and if you're not commercial beekeeper and a little bit mild condition, cold condition if you're living in, then you can use change to your queen every other year.

So Turkey beekeeping queen breeding system is really developed.

So right now more than a hundred companies, breeder companies produce maybe half million queen and they use small mating box like commonly styrofoam boxes, mating boxes.

But we also use different insulated mating box and nucleus colonies also to raise queens.

And also as I talked at the beginning like we have still traditional beekeeping practices.

So we have still log hive, skep hives, and tree beekeeping.

It is not common but sometimes we have some predators like bear and some beekeepers still keep their local hobby style or small range beehives on the trees or sometimes on the mountain rocky area to prevent from the bears or caves, in front of the caves.

So this is typical honeycomb, it's famous in Turkey they pay extra money for these traditional honey.

So there is benefits sometimes.

Some beekeepers, they are farmers, they do other jobs and they keep these traditional hives without extra labor because minimal human intervention allows to try these colonies just they collect swarms and they install inside of these like natural skep or low hives environment and they just grow.

If they die that's okay, they don't inspect, they don't much treat, sometimes right now they can treat for months but other than they don't do much, they just visit at the end of the season.

If there is honey they collect those honey, harvest honey and they sell with high price.

So natural treatments includes herbal remedies or propolis coating.

Important because we have a variety...

Geographically really variety of the plant source and extra gives herbal remedies and different propolis quality and we have this valuable products from Turkey, different parts of the Turkey.

Beside these traditional hives, we have also good technical beekeeping enterprises.

So right now you can see like North America, you can see in Turkey packaged bees on sale or (indistinct) colonies on sale and lots of substitute like pollen sugar, they are on sale for commercial beekeepers and commercial beekeepers use technology like as for other part of the world.

So they use thermal loggers like data loggers and they monitor their hybrid technology.

They use cameras and even they use like tracks.

So some of the beekeepers, they just install their colonies on track so they just migrate different location, they stay over that and they turn on the entrances and they just follow the flora and climate elevation they migrate different location.

And beside the honey production we produce in Turkey queen and some pollen propolis, royal jelly, bee venom and Apilarnil and their number is not really low sometimes right now it's not big amount but it is growing.

Probably we will see some statistical high number like decent amount production in our country productions.

As you see like probably I believe more than like 350 pound pollen in our country produce and some of the propolis coming from them.

Turkey even you can see in the United States market or North American markets some Turkish propolis.

And bee venom is new but they start to produce some bee vernom on their marketing.

Royal jelly we cannot compete with China but still there is decent like couple thousand tons royal jelly we can produce in Turkey.

So variation of high products really important for beekeeping industry or sustainability.

And this is typical beekeeping, commercial beekeeping like scene.

So most of the colonies as you notice like one story and some of them two story but two story most of them indicate and they are medium production boxes.

That first story is broad chamber most of the time.

And second story is production box.

In the United States or North America we consider like two story, two deep stories as a boot chamber.

After two story if they fill extra they store extra we add some mediums, we harvest those mediums as our beekeepers, right?

We treat ourselves.

But in Turkey first story is most of the time boot chamber deep box and after first story they add second stories and they harvest those honey.

Some location rich and they have not really intense bee population.

They can have three stories sometimes and they can harvest more honey but not everywhere.

In the Turkey you can see three stories, four stories colonies.

Agriculture ministry is really working hard.

Let me close this if blocking your view.

I couldn't see still blocking your view. I don't know.

See...

I couldn't...

This is a map from the agriculture ministry.

They monitor really well beekeeping and we have beekeeping association.

They established in 2003 Central Beekeeping Association, Turkey Central Beekeeping Association and they established they start in city associations.

We are around 80 city in Turkey.

So each city has beekeeping association, they connect with the top association, central association like American Beekeeping Federation style organization and also agriculture ministry monitored the beekeeping and they were really involved with the associations.

They monitored, the inspect beekeeping enterprises and they also provide some educational like material and also they provide some information for beekeepers.

For example this map really important, maybe right now these number's estimated but when you enter the like this system on agriculture ministry, you see the list of the top right like these are Turkish, I'm sorry it should be English but I can just quickly say like this is saying honey forest and diversity of the palm honey and geographical honeys like breeding queen companies, bombus producers and floral source.

What kind floral source available.

So if I click one city, if you see this yellow city is capital is Ankara.

So if I click this city it shows me like what kind plants available, how much colony can support and what was the previous year like beekeepers visited and stayed here, migratory beekeepers and what was the production amount last year or previous year and what was the average production per colony.

So you can click different cities, you can learn or get some estimated numbers.

So if you're a commercial beekeeper you can check which city available or better or for your commercial like migratory beekeeping routes or like schedule for next year.

But most of the time as you can estimate or like imagine almost all beekeepers would like to go best location so that is also issue.

But there is limit, you cannot apply, you cannot go as much as you want because you need to ask place to put your colonies.

So if limit go over they say you cannot come this city, you need to find another city.

But this is maybe not a hundred percent accurate but this is really informative and it shows beekeepers routes and it is really beneficial right now.

And migratory beekeeping really common in Turkey, there is no way to survive or make profit in Turkey.

So Turkish beekeepers move hives seasonally to follow nectar flows and they start from the spring as you see on the map like green locations, winterizing location, there are warmer location, Mediterranean coast and Black Sea coast.

So most of the commercial beekeepers take their colonies and winterize over there and even there are some floral source blooming in the winter.

Sometimes even they can produce honey in the winter but...

And most of time we consider this a supportive like a source they can just support the colonies.

And after spring, they just choose a route they go different direction but if they're coming from the east they prefer to go east because they are trying to go homestead but they are free to go anywhere if they decide if they're originally coming from the east coast, they can go west coast, there's no issue but they need to follow elevation, they need to follow some like nectar flow and they need to cooperate with the association and agriculture ministry.

They need to get permission.

They cannot decide, oh, I'm going this tonight, I'm gonna load my hives, I'm gonna go somewhere because there is like bureaucracy, there is paperwork, they need to go agriculture ministry, local station, they should say I'm planning to go this and they need to call destination, they need to ask permission if there's any space.

So they need to coordinate this maybe with the associations and agriculture ministry but it's not hard just you need to know instruction and they ended up...

Pine honey is last stop, sometimes cotton honey also last stop in beekeeping road.

So they're blooming or like not blooming.

This is floral source honey.

So they are available pine honey sources like forest available in the fall, late fall and winter until winter months it's available many years.

So requires careful planning and high transport logistics.

Some companies transporting beekeepers colonies like as a shipping companies or providers.

Different weather conditions also affect the bee life, colony life like everywhere else.

And unique Turkish bee products also really important in beekeeping industry in Turkey.

Pine honey we mentioned like most important like exclusive honey for Turkey and Greece.

So south part and west coast of the like Turkey has opportunity to produce some pine honey and maybe 25% of the production come from the pine honey and they mostly export these honey because local people don't eat much these pine honey they like maybe floral honeys in Turkey but pine honey is really valuable.

There is minerals content high and it is medicinal honey and most of the time in Japan, Germany and United States of different countries exporting this honey.

Another, chestnut, thyme lavender honey is getting more common and we produce decent amount.

Bee bread getting more common.

If you look to market as a beekeeper or consumer, you can see honey pollen on the top products from the honeybee colonies and bee bread and royal jelly, propoli is coming behind this honey and pollen but they are getting more common in the world and the consumer market.

And raw honey varieties maintain high nutrition if you don't process them.

So we need to do this everywhere, not just Turkey but sometimes we have issues in the marketing and we see some processing to prepare better products for customers, consumers.

But it's not good.

We need to consume honey as a raw with all nutrition without damaging and filtering them.

And Turkey export numbers are not good but they export really premium good quality products but there are some limitation like your limitation like contents or some chemicals.

So they need to carefully produce otherwise there is enough production to export but they're not exporting well in Turkish beekeepers.

And same thing like as for everywhere in the world.

Turkish beekeepers also has some challenges and some opportunities.

Challenges are mostly related with the same thing with other parts of the world like mites, Varroa mites as one of the major issue.

Same we cannot control the a hundred percent Varroa mite and our climate low make difficult this mite control especially commercial beekeeping.

You cannot control mite because it's not in your hand.

You are moving your colonies and other beekeepers moving next to your location.

And I can give just basic example.

Basic example comparison with the United States square footage area.

Turkey square footage area.

So maybe 10 times more than 10 times larger country United States there is around 3 million, maybe 2.8 million according to statistic there is population honeybee colonies.

So production is high and even there's migration because of pollination service.

But Turkey has 10 times smaller count...

Is 10 times smaller country and they have maybe three times more honeybee colonies.

So if you go Turkey, if you drive your car or take a trip, you can see everywhere.

When you look one side you can see one beekeeper.

When you look other side you can see another beekeeper.

We are more like I think old population according to my idea.

Even though we have good landscape and geography climate but still old population.

So this old population makes difficult either any disease or Varroa issue.

Another issue is climate change like everywhere and pesticides becoming issue especially west part of the Turkey there is commercial farming there in place and they're becoming more issue and we see sometimes issues, colony losses.

But it's compared to United States or North America, it's not much.

And marketing is really issue, big issue as I mentioned couple slide before, there is some like limits like requirements for marketing your bees, exporting to other countries, especially US and North America and Europe.

So you need to comply these requirements otherwise it's difficult And colony loses, same thing other part of the world.

Let me see what we have.

I think this is one...

No, yeah, one more slide.

So government community support and there is definitely good support from the government, I would say.

Government subsidize support in beekeepers across Turkey.

Right now there are different type supports.

One is just coming from the the government if you're a beekeeper, but if you're a member of the association, government give extra support.

One of them, let's say $3 if you're a member of this association and if you're not member it is maybe $2 plus something.

And if you're young and woman like government give extra support and if you're producing some organic products, government give extra support.

And also government gives some like breeder support like queen breeders.

If you use breeder queens, you are getting extra support.

So roughly right now $5 plus something you can get from government.

And agriculture ministry monitor all your hives.

If you have more than 20 colonies, you are eligible to get support.

But if you are a member of the one association in your city, it is more support coming from the government.

And like animals, farm animals we have in Turkey, each colony has a number, tag number.

So they record this and they monitor those hives.

If you lose your colony you need to report the government or association you need to say I lost these numbers.

And if you create again new colonies, you need to report, you need to register with the new numbers like animals for your colonies.

And we have educational initiatives and agriculture ministry research center and university research programs like other parts of the world but not maybe sufficient right now.

But they are focusing all aspect of the beekeeping and there are some strict regulations.

Migration if you have disease, if you have any problem (indistinct) regulations you need to stay, you cannot move your colonies.

There are some location like Apis mellifera caucasian location you cannot free to the enter because that location like just preserve the specific genetics.

And also west part of the Turkey is also similar Apis mellifera anatolica location, you cannot freely enter some specific locations.

Conclusion, Turkey beekeeping heritage blends tradition and innovation.

Unique honey varieties reflect the diverse geography and flora.

And sustainability and organic practices ensure long-term success beekeeping.

Local bee species provide insight into genetic resilience.

Beekeeping remains a vital part of Turkish's cultural and agricultural identity.

And mostly I said I have my own experiences but still I need to use some images and some information.

I put my references here and thank you so much for your attention and I'm happy to answer your question if you have time.

This is Q and A session.

Thank you so much.

- Okay, thank you.

If you wanna stop sharing your screen then we'll be able to see your face.

- [Cahit] Sure.

- There we go.

Okay, we did have some people writing questions but if anybody else has more just put 'em in the chat and we'll get to them.

Thank you. That looks very exciting.

Beekeeping in Turkey.

So you showed us that there were lots of different plants available.

So why do you think honey production numbers are so low?

- Yeah, my answer, my personal answer is overpopulation.

As I mentioned like 9 million colonies according to my idea opinion, it is too many colonies.

We have wealthy environment, rich environment but it is not sufficient for 9 million colonies especially as I mentioned.

And there are specific location and important honey production sources, all commercial bee keepers would like to utilize those locations.

So some of the location rail, like they have not many beekeepers prefer to stay.

Some location most of the beekeeper would like to produce something.

- I see, that does make sense.

You know, I feel like most of us have heard about mad honey but somebody did ask what is that produced from.

So can you tell us more about the mad honey?

- Yeah there is a plant, it is not in my mind but it is Turkish name is Forest Rose or something.

Let me see if it is available close by but it is not in my mind but there is like bush style some flowers.

It is really common in the north part of the Turkey, Black sea region and I remember really well the ingredient like grayanotoxin inside this nectar.

So this makes honey as mad or like affecting for human.

So local beekeepers can produce more because this is not really preferred nectar source for all bee genetics.

Like if you have different type bees, if you go that location you cannot produce much.

But local beekeepers, local genetics source bees, they produce more but it is not every year.

Similar quantity you can produce but it is medicinal honey, they sell really high price and yeah if you're not familiar you shouldn't eat more than one spoon.

- Yeah, so somebody else did remember the plant, rhododendron and I...

- Right. Yeah, yeah right now I remember.

Rhododendron, right?

- That is what (indistinct) from, yeah.

- [Cahit] Yeah.

- You also mentioned if you could just tell us even more about, I don't know, Elvish honey, pine honey and yeah.

- Which honey you said? Elvish?

- Yeah does- - Is it in the chat I can see?

- Yeah, it's possible that it's from the captioning but the pine honey is that some sort of honeydew honey from- - Yes this is honeydew honey and there is insect, marchalina hellenica, they live on the pine trees but not everywhere in the world.

Just specifically our country and Greece.

So these insects suck the pine leaves and use the protein parts and just release the carbohydrate parts and bees collecting those honeydew from the pine trees or leaves and depends on the year but it is huge opportunity for beekeepers because this is medicinal honey, high mineral content available, taste look like maybe pine, some consumers don't like but it is really demanding honey in the honey market in the world.

- It's so interesting to know about other countries making honeydew honey because it's such a new topic for Americans.

- Yes. Yeah, different honeydew honey available like even in Turkey, different trees, different forest provides some honeydew honey but they're not high quantity.

They're not like right now we can sell, we can talk about but different honeydew honey also available in Turkey.

- So while we're on the topic of honey, let's just keep going.

So I think you were talking about Turkish honey getting exported.

Are there certain types that are really popular for export and despite there being too many colonies so each colony doesn't make much honey itself overall.

I forget what you said about honey production.

Where does honey production fall for Turkey?

So the number of colonies I think you were third in the world.

What about honey production overall?

- Production is second in the world but export numbers, exporting wise we are really down like maybe more than like lower the 10th or 20th country because it cannot...

Either we consume a lot, either there's some regulation they cannot comply to sell but I see some export numbers but it's not enough compared to production numbers.

- Hmm, okay.

So let's talk about the bees themselves.

You did tell us about a number of different subspecies that are present. - [Cahit] Yes.

- Are any of them highly defensive?

- Yes, some of them like caucasian is really...

The soil like Italian (indistinct)

and an Italian also not bad like if you have any experience with Russian bees or just regular European bee colonies, they're defensive but they can be manageable with the smoke and it's not bad like Africanized bees but we have some south part like Syrian and meda bees like genetics.

They're a little bit defensive sometimes I find the similarities with the Syrian bees, with Africanized bees when I see here sometimes Africanized bees I say this is look like Syrian bees we were facing in Turkey.

But yeah definitely we have some defensive behavior from the south genetics sources.

- I see. (clears throat)

Do you think that drifting between colonies is a problem in Turkey?

Like I saw lots of migratory beekeeping and also that was an incredible queen yard where all the hives look the same.

I'm impressed that those queens find their way back. (chuckles)

- Yes. So yeah that's correct.

And there is a drifting issue I think as we expect because we always suggest beekeepers give some space between the colonies if possible to prevent it like contamination or like spreading some disease or any mites because we know all like disease mites they can spread from colony to colony especially next to each other, but there is not enough space to spread all around so many bee keepers needs to find space to put their colonies.

Most of time they're like army style next to each other.

So probably they have lots of different issue.

And this is also sometimes if there's rubbing issue I also stimulate the rubbing issue because if they're closed they're rubbing more frequently.

And I agree with you like when I inspect the queen companies I was saying like don't do this, naturally spread the like mating boxes because they can drift, they can die in another mating box.

But same thing they say like there is no issue because they use ground then marking like flowers and small something.

But I agree with you, they shouldn't place those mating boxes like army style.

They should spread different direction and they should mark and they should put some natural something to prevent the drifting and loses.

- Yeah, I guess they're willing to lose some of the queens, I guess it's worth it, so.

- [Cahit] Yes. (chuckles)

- Are there tropilaelaps mites in Turkey?

- Not yet but we are so close because according to recent news we have neighbors like in Georgia, Armenia has tropilaelaps and we are expecting to see soon, either this year, either next year.

- Mm. Terrible.

- Yes.

- Are there a lot of regulations for those migratory beekeepers?

Do they have to get inspected before they can move?

Are there like political borders within Turkey? You know- - Yeah, there's some regulations but they're not really strict.

So if you start beekeeping there's something paperwork.

So you need to say I'm coming from this city, this city and I found place and this is my contact information, this is my location.

If all parties agree and if there's not any issue, you are okay.

But before you move your colonies you need to get inspected, you need to get a paper, clear paper.

Like agriculture ministers should say or veterinarian should say this like enterprise or beekeeping organization has not any issue to contaminate other like beekeepers, bother other beekeepers they can go.

So if you have clear paper then you can go anywhere but you need to schedule this with different organizations.

- Okay. You were talking about how there's lots of honeybees everywhere, are there beekeepers that do urban beekeeping?

- Yes. So more urban beekeeping is more common like instead of commercial area like farm area, most of the beekeeper prefer the stay away from the chemicals.

But in nature, beekeeping needs...

Big colonies needs some pollen nectar source, also they are sometimes coming to utilize those sources if there is not any dangers or chemical issue where they are visiting.

But summer times most of the beekeepers would like to stay away and use rural area.

- I see.

When you were talking about beekeeping products, you know you mentioned propolis and honey and you also said bee bread.

So do you mean pollen collected from the legs of the bees or you mean after it's in the hive and packed in they harvest that?

- Yes, that's correct.

So bee bread as we know as a beekeeper, bees collect pollen and we can trap them, we can collect those pollen and consume as a fresh pollen or bees can use.

But bees collecting fresh pollen and they add some enzymes and add some honey and they ferment that pollen for two reason, as long as my knowledge.

One of the reason is long term storage, reduced moisture and keep long term as a protein source in the colony and second reason is make more digestible form of the pollen because honey has pollen particles has like...

What was around the like pollen particles like, we need to break the pollen shells.

Shells really hard to digest in our digesting system, especially human or even bee digesting system.

So if they like break the those shells, they're more nutritional like component being available for bees and human.

So when they consume bee bread it's more nutritional and even for human, if we eat pollen and bee bread, bee bread is more nutritional, digestible for human, organism also.

So we don't use plastic foundation in Turkey.

So there is a system or machines they just break the frame with the bee bread so they extract the bee bread from bees wax structure.

So they either mostly they use for consumers but you can use as a food source for bees when you add your bee pollen substitute you can add...

Instead of bee pollen you can add some bee bread too but it's not common they're just commercially there so to consumers.

But I meant bee bread different than bee pollen and also we produce bee bread.

- Huh, yeah, that sounds very labor intensive to collect.

Okay. Unless there's any more questions that show up in the chat, I think we've gotten through them.

- One of them we missed, if someone needs to learn.

I see. What is api learning production?

So api learning is drone extraction.

So we as a beekeeper we can collect three day old or between three day to seven day.

But mostly we prefer the last stage of the (indistinct) stage of the drones.

We collect them, we homogenize them and we make a product we called (indistinct)

So this is really common in Asia, middle East, Europe and Russia.

So it's bi...

I haven't seen, I saw a couple products but it's not really common in the North America but it is really valuable product.

They produce other parts of the world.

- Mashed up drone pupi?

- Yes, but we make powder instead of mesh.

You can mashed up and you can leafless and you can make powder also and you are adding some sugar, honey or something to make sweet, otherwise you can add anything you can consume.

- Yeah, if you've ever tasted royal jelly, I think that's the same taste as a pupa and I don't like it. (chuckles)

- Yeah, I don't like royal jelly taste but it is really valuable.

Some foods, that's true but depends on your taste but it sounds not really tasty but it is valuable.

- Absolutely. Okay, I did miss a couple.

So there was some news about forest fires on Greek islands that affected the pine honey production.

Is that a problem in Turkey sometimes?

- Not this one but in the past, yes.

A couple years before, I don't remember, maybe two, three years before there was a big fire like California fire, we lost lots of forest location, pine honey locations.

So it is sad because those trees needs to like become eligible to produce pine honey maybe 40, 50, a hundred years.

So we lost some location, this is sad but still we have eligible location and also they contaminate this insect to other location.

They are trying to increase the location like eligible locations.

- I see. And pine honey is a very popular topic here.

So do you know the pine plant species that produce this honey?

- Not in my mind, but it is most common, some pine varieties.

- Okay, so more questions are coming in. (chuckles)

- Okay. We have time.

- Yeah. That drone powder that you're making, is that for animal consumption, bee consumption, human consumption?

- Human consumption, but all products we use as a human consumption also eligible for other animals.

Like if you use any food we can give these foods for our pets, fish, some farm animals and there are some products we make from the bee products you use in the fishing, we can use in farming or race horses.

So any like live material like even plants so you can fertilize plants with the bee products but depends on the economic like level.

If it is economical something you can do this.

But I believe we can use for everything but mainly those products for human conception.

- Wow.

And then one more question about the pine honey, did you say that people are spreading around the insects to the pines so that they'll make honey dew for the bees?

- Yes, but limited conditions.

So if you have pine it doesn't mean that insect will survive well and produce some like honey dew.

So we have forest all over the like Turkey or world but there is some limitation condition, require some climate and specific pine trees.

So even some of the location we have pine trees or forest in Turkey, they contaminated but it didn't work well.

So you need to find unique location close the pine area, pine honey production area.

You need to imitate similar environment or you need to find similar condition to expect the same results.

- Very interesting. I learned so many things today.

- [Cahit] Great. (laughs)

- Thank you for a really great presentation.

We appreciate you, you know, sharing your expertise and your time with us today.

- [Cahit] You're welcome.

- And I hope I'll see you again soon.

Hope I'll see everybody- - Thank you so much.

See you, everyone. Have a great day.

- Bye. - [Cahit] Bye.