I am a graduate of Istanbul Technical University with a bachelor’s degree in Food Engineering. I worked for many years as the R&D and quality director at one of the leading companies of the honey business. Throughout my professional career, I’ve been both the architect and leader of numerous research initiatives and projects related to bee products.

During that period, I was struggling with a major health problem in my family. I had a 5-year-old son who had been running a high fever every few months, and hence I had to treat him with antibiotics each time this happened. As a result of using antibiotics often, he eventually developed allergies for them. A physician whom I found after a long search suggesting no antibiotics told me that the only treatment that would help him was to improve his immune system. Then I started looking for natural ways of strengthening his immune system. So I came across the miraculous power of propolis and royal jelly in numerous works of literature that I scanned in the scientific databases. Royal jelly contains many nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates, oils, and vitamins. Also, propolis is a natural bee product that bees gather from plant stems, leaves, and buds, presenting excellent anti-bacterial and antioxidant effects. Bees use propolis to kill germs inside the hive and to keep the bee colony healthy. So I was planning to use it both royal jelly and propolis to protect my child’s health.

Those bee products became my biggest hope to cure my son. While I was so happy with the idea that my son would regain his health, I had no time to waste to obtain propolis. Honey is the most well known and most consumed bee product. Well, indeed, I had been in the honey industry for many years. So I instantly contacted some beekeepers I had already known, and I asked them to produce royal jelly. Actually, those beekeepers were not interested in harvesting propolis before, and they previously just scraped it off the hive and threw it away. On the other hand, I knew propolis isn’t edible in its original form; it is supposed to go through an extraction process. After I started giving royal jelly and properly extracted propolis to my son, the result was terrific. I was nourishing him with propolis, or its mixtures with honey or with royal jelly and honey. My son did not become sick for months like it was a dream for me. Living a dream that comes true has given the joy of life back to me. Based on this experience, I started feeding my second child, from the age one, with those products, regularly and still both of them daily.

Of course, this was not the end of my journey with propolis. My story got spread around initially among my friends and family and then to their friends and so on. Then, I decided to help people experiencing similar health problems in seeking help from natural and healthy solutions. I saw that there was a vast gap for such bee products in the market. To make those products available to others, who were not as lucky as I was, I aimed to build a team depth-in knowledge in areas of beekeeping and functional food science with a research background. Well, at first, I convinced Mr. Taylan Samanci, who was one of my colleagues for many years, and then my academic adviser Prof. Dr. Dilek Boyacioglu, from Istanbul Technical University. I knew I wouldn’t have the courage to start this journey without them, so I do appreciate their contribution very much. Then, all of us began drawing a new path in our lives and jumped into a journey full of surprises and challenges since 2013. Now we’re receiving many supportive e-mails and phone calls from people with similar stories; it is a great pleasure to inspire them with our story. I am so thankful that I could find a way to help people and contribute to their life quality with those valuable bee products.