Selim Alpaydın, a traveling beekeeper who came to Yozgat from Kumru district of Ordu, said that the products sold cheaply under the name of honey in the markets endanger human health and negatively affect the beekeeping sector.
Yozgat, which is among the most preferred provinces by traveling beekeepers, is home to many beekeepers. In Bozok Plateau, which has hundreds of endemic plant species and rich flora, traveling beekeepers work overtime to produce quality honey. Traveling beekeepers, who come to Yozgat especially from Black Sea provinces such as Ordu and Samsun, strive to complete the honey milking and get paid for their labor. However, traveling beekeepers, who produce tons of organic honey, are having difficulties in marketing their products due to fake honey produced under the stairs in recent days. Fake honeys, which are preferred because they are cheap but do not benefit human health as well as harm, cause the labor of beekeepers to go to waste. Traveling beekeepers who produce in Yozgat state that this situation has ended the beekeeping sector and that they will not be able to produce honey next year.
“No one knows the value of organic honey”
Selim Alpaydın, 57, who came to Yozgat from Kumru district of Ordu and has been producing organic honey on Bozok Plateau for about 40 years, claimed that human health is endangered with cheap and fake honey produced in the market. Alpaydın said, “I am from Ordu, I have been doing itinerant beekeeping for 35-40 years. Unfortunately, there were some reasons that ended itinerant beekeeping. We harvested our honey but we were left with honey because they sell fake, artificial honey cheaply to the citizens. They produce this poison, which we call honey under the stairs, as honey. That's why itinerant beekeeping and beekeeping in Turkey has come to an end. No matter how much organic honey we make, we cannot get out from under this business. On TV, citizens order fake honey and receive poisons containing carcinogenic substances. They give this honey cheap, we give organic honey cheap, but unfortunately no one knows the value of organic honey.”
“They sell poison to citizens instead of honey”
Stating that fake honeys have a negative impact on human health, Alpaydın said, “They make these fake honeys from sugar factory wastes, substances like baklava syrup, which we call corn syrup, and they sell poison to citizens, they give them cancer. Production work has become very difficult, our costs have increased, we are short of staff. Young people are not interested in this business. In the past, everyone used to do this job, but now they say there is no end to this job. This is the end of beekeeping. Scientists are already talking about the end of the world if beekeeping disappears. Beekeeping is over in Turkey, please let the authorities take a hand in this matter. Our product is good, but these fake honey producers, honey producers under the stairs have unfortunately finished this business. I did this job willingly, I left the civil service, I was doing it with love, but I am exhausted now. Most probably this year will be the last, I will not produce. I have many friends from Ordu who think like me and they have decided to quit this job. We cannot get out from under the expenses, we cannot sell our honey at its value.”
İHA Haber Kodu: 20240901AW278482