Today’s challenges

A few years ago, after graduating, I followed in Botond’s footsteps and joined the family business. When needed, I take part in product development and engineering work, such as designing machinery, but I am also consulted on investment decisions. During spring and summer, I spend most of my time in Nezde, where I now manage 500 colonies. For me, the formula is simple: if I can spend at least three months of the year working directly with the bees, the beekeeping remains viable. Of course, I need help. My brothers, though they moved on, haven’t forgotten beekeeping and step in when necessary, and I have also found colleagues who fell in love with this work just as I did.

My main focus is on comb honey, one of the company’s key products. In this area, we are particularly strong on the market: we can produce clean, residue-free, biologically pure comb honey of outstanding quality – something almost unique in the world. Competitiveness in beekeeping depends heavily on the amount of manual labour involved, which in Europe comes at a high cost. Our main competitors are Turkish producers, but their quality is far below ours.

This is not easy work. Every day I see how my experience with comb honey often goes beyond what is written in textbooks. I have to create very specific conditions for the bees, conditions about which there is little written knowledge, as they can only be discovered in practice. Each year is an experiment, with the results revealed only at the end of the season. For a long time, I worked in parallel with different methods to eliminate uncertainty, but today I focus on one technology, and so far it seems I have chosen wisely.

Naturally, I share the knowledge I gain with those who once taught me. Competitiveness depends on how many work hours it takes to produce a kilogram of comb honey, and in this respect European producers, with European wages, face serious challenges against cheaper Turkish and Chinese imports.

Today I am certain that my life will revolve around honey. The path my father paved does not need to be reinvented – it works as it is. Naturally, we often debate the tasks ahead, since I now also take part in decisions that once were his alone, and sometimes the arguments get heated. Still, they always move us forward. My father – who remains active – recently decided that in the interests of the future, it is Botond who will now have the final word in the family business.