A New Beginning with Beekeeping: The Story of Kadir Özer
Kadir Özer, who works in a delicatessen business in Ardahan, opened a new page in his life by deciding to do beekeeping like his grandfather. Özer, who went to Istanbul in 2006 to find a job, worked as a chef in restaurants for 11 years. However, he returned to his hometown and chose beekeeping, his grandfather’s profession, and began to improve himself in this field.
Özer started beekeeping with 10 hives and increased this number to approximately 300 hives over time. He turned not only to producing honey, but also propolis, pollen, royal jelly, apilarni, bee bread and, finally, bee venom. Looking for ways to earn additional income, Özer learned how to produce bee venom and created a market for himself in this field.
Bee Venom Production and Valuable Uses
Özer started selling bee venom, which is used in the treatment of many diseases, especially in the cosmetics and health sectors, for 100 dollars per gram domestically. He obtained a special electrical device from the beekeeping gene center to collect bee venom. This device was used to collect poison from bees without harming them. Thanks to a special apparatus placed in the hives, the electrified bees were able to leave poison on the glass. The bee venom was obtained stored by scraping it from the glass, and with this method, the bees released their poison without being harmed.
In addition to his own bees, he started collecting bee venom from other beekeepers and giving production training on this subject. Stating that bee venom is an extremely valuable product and can be collected in very small quantities, Özer said, “For this reason, it is sold by grams.” He also emphasized that they are turning to producing bee venom as a value-added product. Özer said, “Beekeeping in our region is not a profitable profession. We cannot make money just by beekeeping. That’s why we turned to bee venom production. Because bee venom is used both in the cosmetics industry and the health sector, and therefore it is “Many products are obtained from bees, but the most valuable is bee venom,” he said.
Value and Market Potential of Bee Venom
Özer stated that the price of bee venom is more valuable than gold and said, “A kilogram of the venom reaches 100 thousand dollars in the market. The reason for this is that this poison is used especially in the chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry and cosmetics.” . It is used in many areas from human health to personal care and is used in different areas day by day.” “Experiments are being carried out. Articles are being written and international studies are being carried out on bee venom. Experiments are being carried out in laboratories,” he said.
Goals of Ardahan Beekeepers Association
Ardahan Beekeepers Association President İlhan Evliyaoğlu pointed out the importance and value of bee venom and stated that they wanted to direct beekeepers to this sector. Evliyaoğlu said, “Honey harvest varies seasonally from year to year. Honey is not taken every year. Our aim here should be to produce pollen, propolis, royal jelly, bee bread and bee venom in addition to obtaining honey from bees. It is not possible to obtain honey seasonally every season. “It is very simple to obtain bee venom and this product is used in both the health and cosmetics industry. Therefore, it is very valuable,” he concluded.
