Everything is honey: researchers from the Hebrew University found bees of the Turkish variety in beehives from biblical times

The findings suggest the importation of bees from Turkey for commercial breeding purposes

A study led by biologists and archaeologists from the Hebrew University found that already in biblical times, bees were raised in the Land of Israel on an industrial scale. The findings indicate that for this purpose the biblical beekeepers imported bees with a favorable temperament from Turkey.

A group of archaeologists led by Prof. Amichai Mazar from the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University uncovered in 2007 at Tel Rehov in the Beit Shean Valley a beehive from the Biblical period. The beehive that was found was dated to the tenth - early ninth century BC and is considered the oldest ever found in the world. According to the researchers, the apiary included between 100 and 200 hives that contained more than a million bees and was located within the urban area of ​​Tel Rehov. The location of the apiary within the urban area surprised the researchers since bees are known to be extremely aggressive, especially when the hives are opened, for example for the purpose of draining the honey.

After the excavation was completed, remains collected from the hives were transferred to the laboratory of Prof. Guy Bloch, an expert on bee behavior and evolution from the Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology at the Hebrew University. The findings of the tests, which were recently published in the prestigious journal PNAS, provide clear evidence that these are indeed ancient beehives - the remains of honeycombs and charred bees were found inside the beehives.

The remains found in the hive were adult bees with a hard body structure, remains of larvae and pupae with a soft body shell. About 17 wing remains and dozens of leg remains. In collaboration with experts from Germany and Brazil, the researchers sought to classify and identify the species of bees based on the remains found.

To their surprise, the findings showed that the bees in Tel Rehov are different from the local Syrian bee whose original range included the Land of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The bees from Tel Rehov did not match either the Egyptian bee species whose range is south of that of the Syrian bee, nor the Persian bee species, the neighbor of the Syrian bee to the north and northeast. The researchers concluded that the bee remains are most similar to the Anatolian bee that lives in central Turkey. These findings raise the question - what is a Turkish bee doing in the Land of Israel?

A possible explanation put forward by the researchers is that the area of ​​distribution of the bee species 3,000 years ago was different from what is known today. Although this explanation cannot be ruled out, researchers have not found any evidence or studies to support it. Another explanation is that the beekeepers from Tel Rehov imported bees with superior characteristics over the local breed. "Importing bees seems to be a useful idea since the Syrian bee is known as a very irritable and aggressive bee, so it is likely that it would have been difficult to keep many hives with these bees in a dense settlement" says Prof. Bloch. According to him, the Anatolian bee produces 5 to 8 times more honey, is calmer and easier to grow commercially and therefore was probably preferred for growing in urban areas.

In addition to this, the excavations found evidence of extensive trade relations with countries in the eastern Mediterranean as well as archaeological evidence that in ancient times there was a technology for moving bee swarms in pots or portable beehives. An Assyrian inscription from the eighth century BC mentions bringing bees from the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey to a distance of 400 km to the south, a distance only slightly smaller than that between southern Turkey and Tel Rehov. According to Prof. Bloch, importing bees from non-aggressive species is also the solution chosen by the pioneers of the apiary industry in the Land of Israel: "After a series of failed, and probably painful, attempts to base the apiary industry on commercial-scale breeding of the irritable Syrian bee, it was finally decided to import bees from European varieties that have a more comfortable character and a higher honey yield" says Prof. Bloch.

"The research shows that beekeeping was much more sophisticated than what was commonly thought until now," says Prof. Mazar and adds that "the findings shed new light on the well-known saying 'the land of milk and honey' - it is commonly believed that the term 'honey' in the Bible refers mainly to fruit honey and not to honey bees, but the fact that the industrial apiary was found within an inhabited area testifies to the great economic value of the honey and dung of the bees in biblical times."