Beekeeper uses ‘cannon sound device’ to keep bears away

A man from the Black Sea province of Rize has developed a time-cycled mechanism that makes unpleasant sounds to scare away bears that haunt his beehives.

Muharrem Çelik, who is engaged in beekeeping in the Derecik village of Rize, took action against wild bears that woke up from hibernation, descended to the region and smashed their hives.

Çelik decided to activate a system inherited from his grandfather years ago, which is in the form of a pipe that malfunctioned over time and worked with air and gas pressure. Çelik, who installed the mechanism he repaired around the hives, ensures that the bears are afraid of the sound made by the time-controlled system at certain intervals.

Çelik, who protects his beehives from being destroyed by bears with the system he repaired, stated that his grandfather came up with this device in 2004.

"It was malfunctioning a bit, so we had it repaired. It has timing options like half an hour, 15 minutes and such. It makes an explosion sound in that time, so we named it 'mortar cannon.' Our neighbors are a bit uncomfortable with it, but it is efficient. It works well as the bears don't come. The sound it makes is two times that of an average Ramadan cannon," Çelik said.

Yunus Emre Dilmaç, one of the villagers, stated that they were quite scared when they first heard the device's sound, but many of Çelik's hives were damaged by bears that haunted his property.