Honey was harvested early on the peaks of the Taurus Mountains due to fear of bears.

In the Bozkır district of Konya, honey was harvested early as bears invaded the hives located at the peaks of the Taurus Mountains. Beekeeper İbrahim Tontul, who carries out beekeeping activities with all family members ranging from seven to seventy, captures images with mobile phones while opening the hives he has entrusted to others, delivering the honey produced to the owners. During the honey harvest, İbrahim Tontul made statements at his apiary: “This is the hive belonging to Mrs. Tuğba, who I’ve entrusted. Hopefully, after three months of waiting, it will produce honey. We haven’t checked this hive for three or four months. Now we will open the hive and see its condition; we will check if there will be honey. We are in an area with an altitude between 2,000 and 2,500 meters. There is a lot of floral diversity here. That’s why I think it’s worthwhile to bring bees to this area. The quality of honey here is also a bit different. This year’s honey harvest is below normal compared to previous years. In places with lower altitudes, honey was extremely scarce, but here, thank goodness, it’s quite nice. In this high-altitude region, we have bees in four different areas, and we also entrusted one hive in our apiary to our bear brother. Out of respect for nature, we set aside one hive for him to eat, but he ate six hives. We moved all our bees here.” Vehbi Balık, the eldest of the family, who looks after his grandson bearing his name at the apiary, stated that they came to help İbrahim Tontul with his bees, saying, “We are assisting. While İbrahim looks after the bees, I spend time with my grandson Vehbi.”