As Rosh Hashanna (the Jewish New Year) approaches, honey, the traditional treat symbolizing blessings of sweetness, is increasingly rare. As per its Biblical blessing, Israel is holding strong as a bee-haven, spreading the buzz around the world.

Biblical bees

The Bible says explicitly that Israel is the land of milk and honey and at no time is this description more apt than on Rosh Hashanna when Jews dip apples in bee juice as a symbol of hope for a sweet new year. 

He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Deuteronomy 26:9

Honey is mentioned 54 times in the Bible, 15 of which specifically state a land flowing with milk and honey.

Israel’s struggling honey industry

Reflecting this Biblical precedent, Israel hosts around 500 beekeeperes (known as apiarists) that tend 120,000 hives hosting about 1,100 species of bees which produce around 3,500 tons of honey per year, of which little or none is exported. Israelis on average consume 600 grams of honey per person during the whole year with 40% of Israel’s annual honey sales taking place in the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah. To meet this need, the country imports about 1,000 tons of honey.

Despite the explicit blessing, it is particularly difficult to produce honey in Israel. Hives, sitting unattended in fields for extended periods, are easy targets for theft and agricultural terrorism. Arson balloons targeting southern Israel burn entire hives and even the bees that remain have no flowers to sustain them. 

Bees in the desert

For these reasons, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) supports an effort by Porat farm in Ein Yahav in the Negev. According to JTA, the Negev, also known as the Arava, in the south of Israel is ideal for bees. With a minimal human population, the desert area has pure, unpolluted air. The region has a thriving agriculture industry with crops being raised almost exclusively in greenhouses to retain moisture. Hothouses inhibit infestations of bugs but also prevent insect-facilitated pollination. Local farmers have come to rely on cultured bees, paying beekeepers to place the hives inside the greenhouses and in their fields.

 “Without the bees we wouldn’t be able to grow what we grow,” Noa Zer, JNF-USA Liaison in the Arava and owner of a two-acre pepper farm, told JTA. “There would be no source of income. The bees are the best helpers.”  

Dr. Oded Kanan from JNF-USA’s R&D center in the Arava explained, honeybees are more commonly used in open greenhouses, whereas the bumblebee is used in closed greenhouses. While the bumblebee does not produce honey, they are still essential for pollination. Bumblebees move their wings hundreds of times per second, and the vibrations from it allows them to pollinate a flower before they move along to the next plant. This process, called “buzz pollination,”  is a major upgrade from previous pollination techniques in the region, when farmers would have to go by themselves, flower by flower, with a special device to pollinate them. The new technique has increased farmers’ yield by 60 percent, and now, the desert region produces more than half of all of Israel’s produce.

Bees disappearing around the world

While countless studies consistently show that honey bees are dying out in the U.S. and in Europe in a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), their continual flourishing in Israel validates the Biblical description of Israel as a land with blossoming fruits and flowing with milk and honey. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, more than 25 percent of the managed honey bee population has disappeared in the United States since 1990. A report published in 2017 by the Center for Biological Diversity stated that out of the 1,400 honey bee species studied, more than half were on the decline and nearly a quarter were at risk of extinction.

The disappearance of honey bees poses a serious threat to cultivated crops and the 90 percent of wild plants that are dependent on insect pollination, as honey bees are the world’s primary pollinators and are an essential component to functioning ecosystems.  Wild bees pollinate nearly 90% of the world’s wild flowering plant species and complement the work of honeybees, which pollinate more than 75% of the world’s food crops and 35% of global agricultural land. Important crops such as apples, berries, cantaloupes, cucumber, alfalfa, and almonds are dependent on honey bee pollination. CCD may pose a risk to stable fruit and vegetable yield and quality, and ultimately increases concerns over feeding the world’s growing population.

Israeli bees staying strong

Israel’s bee population seems uniquely resilient. The key to this success may be the eucalyptus trees that are now common in Israel. Originally imported from Australia, the particularly thirsty trees helped dry out swamps, which were breeding grounds for malaria-spreading mosquitoes. A recent study showed that while wild bees avoid eucalyptus trees domesticated honeybees, are drawn to the trees’ nectar.

Israel is known as a high-tech haven and this skill has aided the honey industry. Israeli startup Beewise created the world’s first autonomous beehive, a device that houses up to 40 bee colonies which can be controlled through a simple app. Called Beehome, the solar-powered device is placed in the beekeeper’s field, and a robot within the device takes care of the bees in real-time. The app then calculates data like honey harvested, pollen flow, and scans of the bee colonies. A robotic arm slides between honeycombs, using computer vision and cameras to harvest honey while combining or splitting hives.

Lab-grown honey 

If none of that helps and bees become rare in Israel, the Holy Land will still remain flowing with honey. In 2019, a team of students and scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa won a gold medal at the international iGEM competition in Boston for developing beeless honey. The synthetic honey is produced by the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, which “learns” to produce the honey following reprogramming in the lab. In the artificial production of honey, the manufacturer can determine the properties of the honey, including its taste. The laboratory-engineered bacteria process a nectar-like solution using secreted enzymes that mimic the honey stomach environment.