  Variability is one of the extreme observational properties of BL Lacertae
objects. AO 0235+164 is a well studied BL Lac through the whole
electro-magnetic wavebands. In the present work, we show its optical R band
photometric observations carried out during the period of Nov, 2006 to Dec.
2012 using the Ap6E CCD camera attached to the primary focus of the $\rm 70-cm$
meniscus telescope at Abastumani Observatory, Georgia. It shows a large
variation of $\Delta R$ = 4.88 mag (14.19 - 19.07 mag) and a short time scale
of $\Delta T_v$ = 73.5 min during our monitoring period. During the period of
Dec. 2006 to Nov. 2009, we made radio observations of the source using the 25-m
radio telescope at Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory. When a discrete
correlation function (DCF) is adopted to the optical and radio observations, we
found that the optical variation leads the radio variation by 23.2$\pm$12.9
days.
