Fulmer diary
The challenges of the present

A few years ago, after graduating, I followed Botond and joined the family business. When necessary, I am involved in product development and engineering work, for example on machinery and equipment, but I have also been asked to advise on investment decisions. From spring I'll refrain in Nezde, where I'm now working with 500 hives. Clean formula for me that if I can work with bees for three of the 12 months of the year, my apiary is operational. Of course, I need help to do that. My brothers have not forgotten beekeeping, they'll step in when I need them to, but I've found people who, like me, have fallen in love with the work.
Talking about beekeeping, I am mainly focused on the production of honey from the spleen, which is important product of the farm. We are very strong in this market. It's free of pharmaceutical residues, biologically pure and high quality anthrax honey, almost unique in the world. Competitiveness is very much influenced by the amount of human labor spent in beekeeping, which is particularly high costs in Europe. Our main competitors are Turkish companies, but their products quality is much lower than ours.
It is not an easy job. Every day I see that my experience in the production of anthrax honey technology is rewriting the literature on beekeeping. I have to create special conditions for the hives, the results of which without experience, there is no information in the textbooks. And of course I am very concerned about how I can improve my practice. It's a long process, because you can only do it once a year to see whether the innovation launched the previous year has worked or not.
From the point of view of the literature, my results are not really exact, due to the constantly and rapidly changing parameters of nature. To eliminate uncertainty, I have been practicing for years in parallel with two different methods in order to find the right solution. Based on the experience I have gathered, I am using a single technique this year, and so far I seem that I made the right decision. So far, everything is possible. Maybe by the end of the season, my production idea will have fallen apart and I will have to reinvent it next year. But it could also be that I might reach the moment when I'm summing up my experience to the point where I say no more, that's the best I can plan the process.
Of course I share the knowledge I have acquired with those who have taught me before. After all, one of the cornerstones of market competitiveness is the number of man-hours it takes to produce a kilogram of spleen honey. The importance of which can be understood in the coordinate system that I mentioned before. As European producers, we compete with European wages against cheap Turkish and Chinese products. So the lesson is pretty much up for grabs.
Today I am sure that my life will revolve around honey. The road my father paved no longer needs to be rebuilt, it is fine as it is. Of course, we discuss the tasks ahead of us, as I am already involved in the issues that have been his sole responsibility, and sometimes there is a heated debate about how to proceed. But our father, who is still active, has recently decided, with an eye to the future, that Botond will now have the final say in the affairs of the family business, which is run with a strong hand and on a firm footing.




