To Bee or Not to Bee this Rosh Hashanah

Shalom Yeladim:
I know that I'm a fly but I'm as busy as a bee this pre-Rosh Hashanah season. I've decided that I want to find out where the honey is in this Land of Milk & Honey.

Do you know that the term honey appears 55 times in the Bible? That's a lot of beeswax to mind, so I started my journey by making a bee-line to Dvorat Hatavor in the Lower Galilee.


There I met Yigal Ben-Zeev, a fearless bee farmer. Yigal took me to his apiary and showed me around.

He's been breeding bees and making honey products with fingertip ease since 1982. According to Yigal, honey is the best antibiotic, and of course, the world's first sweetener. I couldn't help lick my lips when I saw the honey from the bees up close. It made me make another Bee line -- straight to the supermarket to look at all the honey products and hope I don't get stuck in some type of a jam.

It was a jam all right -- a mental jam. There were so many honey products made from different kinds of fruit. Date honey was the biggie. So I said to myself, Zvuvi, time to go back to the Bible and find out what's going on. Sure enough, the honey from the land of Milk and Honey is primarily from dates and figs! Actual bee honey is only mentioned twice --  in a story about Samson in the Book of Judges and in another story about Jonathan in the Book of Samuel.

That was an eye opener!

Wait a minute, I said to myself. Didn't archaeologists discover an ancient apiary in Beit Sha'an a few years ago, proving that we Israelites were master beekeepers?

I flew to the ancient ruins to have a look.

I flew and flew, and flew until I finally found Tel Rehov, home to the earliest apiary found so far. I listened to the buzz of what the archaeologists were saying and you're not going to believe this!!! The bees that are native to Israel are Syrian bees but the bees the Israelites bred were imported Turkish bees. Why? Because the Syrian bees were too aggressive and they couldn't get them under control. Now, I don't want to start in with politics, but doesn't that sound just a bit like today's buzz from Syria?

I think I better stop here. Things are getting too sticky.
Have a sweet year!
Zvuvi





Beit Sha'an photo credit 

It’s Almost Rosh Hashanah and I’m Having a Honey of a Time

Shalom Yeladim:
To bee or not to bee? Isn’t that the perfect question for Rosh Hashanah – especially if you’re an insect? Being Jewish – and Israeli, I’ll answer that question with another question: To fly or not to fly?
Am I confusing you? Selicha – forgive me – which is another important part of Rosh Hashanah. If I’ve done anything to get you upset, I ask forgiveness. But getting back to my question about confusing you, here’s my answer. I’ve decided yes, I’m going to fly – this time to some of Israel’s bee farms. Do you know that Israel has 500 honey farmers? These farmers maintain 90,000 hives, producing 8 million pounds of honey! But here’s the thing. Honey production isn’t new to Israel. After all, our country – yours and mine because it’s the Jewish state – is often called The Land of Milk and Honey. And with good reason. Israeli archaeologists have found the first real evidence of bee hives in the Biblical city of Tel Rehov located in the Jordan Valley, close to the city of Beit Shean.
So let’s get going with my mini-bee hive tour.
Our first stop is Kibbutz Shamir, located in the Upper Galilee. Natural springs and wild flowers surround the kibbutz apiary (that’s a fancy term for bee farm). I just love the clean, clear mountain air.
Next, I’m going to fly to Olam Ha’Devorah – Bee World – a family run farm found in Binyamina, a small town in the center of Israel, close to Zichron Ya’acov. I like going there because I get to make my own honey. It’s kinda sticky and for a fly that could be a fly-by-night affair – which is why I visit during the day. I know, I know. You’ve had enough of my puns, so let’s head over to Lynn Bee Farms in Moshav Kfar Bilu. The reason I go there is because besides the honey, the Moshav also produces natural and organic foods. Mm, mm. It’s also in the direction of my last stop – the Kibbutz Yad Mordechai apiary – one of the oldest apiaries in the modern State of Israel, with 4,000 hives scattered all over Israel.
Am I having a honey of a time or what???
Have a sweet year…Zvuvi