World Bulletin / News Desk

Chairman of Turkish Beekeepers Association Bahri Yilmaz said honey produced in Turkey graded as high quality because Anatolia region is the motherland of 22 percent of all bees in world and 72 percent of the flowering plants.

In an interview with the Anadolu Agency, Yilmaz said the association jointly worked with the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Animal Breeding to fight with counterfeit honey products which he said had resulted in identification and exposing the counterfeit products.

"Due to extensive varieties of plants in Anatolia, Turkey comes after China in beekeeping," said Yilmaz. adding, "there are 5 million 900 thousand active and 500 thousand inactive honey bee hives in Turkey."

Pointing out that honey producers sell their products at low prices because they have not created their own brands, Yilmaz said they work on branding projects to overcome the problem.

Yilmaz added that so far 28 producers have launched their own brands.