1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



323 



FROM THE LAND OP THE PHARAOHS. 



UEES AND UEE-KEEPINO IN E(!YPT. 



When Israel and his children had done eating the 

 corn they had brought from Egypt, they decided to 

 go down again, and they took with them a little 

 balm and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and 

 almonds. Spices, balm, and myrrh, seem to have 

 been an article of commerce between the Holy 

 Land and Egypt, as we see the Ishmaelites carrying 

 it down with them to Egypt, on their camels. The 

 balm of Gilead has disappeared long since; honey is 

 still to be had, although it never was so plentiful in 

 this country as to need to be exported by the natives. 

 The treacle, or "dibs," manufactured by the Moham- 

 medans out of theirgrapes, mostly about Hebron, in 

 the very place where Joshua and Caleb cut down a 

 cluster of grapes, still forms an article of commerce, 

 although later on we read in the projihet Ezekiel that 

 Tyre imported honey also from Israel. The best 

 Palestine wine is made out of the grapes of Hebron ; 

 but the Mohammedans, whom their law forbids the 

 handling and drinking of wine, make treacle out 

 of their grapes. This is carried in he-goat skins 

 into Egypt, just in the same manner they used to 

 do it in this unchangeable place 4(100 years ago. 

 The bottle which Hagar took, filled with water; the 

 bottle of milk out of which Jael gave Sisera drink; 

 the bottle of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, in which 

 she took wine; the bottle of wine which Saul met, 

 carried by a man near Bethel; also the bottle men- 

 tioned by the prophet Jeremiah (13: 13), were made, 

 very likely, in the same way, if not in the very same 

 place, as the best are now manufactured out of 

 good he-goat skins at Hebron, and used for the 

 transportation of oil, butter, honey, and treacle, 

 and on a great scale for carrying water from the 

 well or fountain to the houses, the mouth being 

 tied with a string, as all the bottle is soft. Spices 

 also, and myrrh, are brought from Mesopotamia. 

 Nuts and almonds are not so abundant now, but in 

 their stead dry fruits are greatly exported, such as 

 raisins and figs, which plants have ever been abun- 

 dant here, as Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every 

 man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from 

 Dan even unto Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. 



The way to go down to Egypt on camels is still 

 practiced by the Bedouins, the very descendants of 

 those Ishmaelites; but the way by sea is a good 

 deal shorter and safer, as their " hand is against 

 every man." The land of Egypt still receives a 

 great deal of honey, mostly imported, as I thought, 

 from the Grecian Archipelago and Asia Minor. I 

 thought very little of the apiculture of the country 

 when I entered the city of Alexandria in December 

 last. This is a very commercial town, and the omni- 

 buses, carriages, and all ways of locomotion, driv- 

 ing up and down the streets, and the railway whistle, 

 once more struck my ear. I felt nearer to civiliza- 

 tion again. In the markets, every thing is properly 

 arranged. You know in our town of Jaffa the 

 streets are hardly ever swept, and there is no 

 want of display of goods. The natives know noth- 

 ing, and do not care that the goods be properly put 

 before the public. 



I went out for a stroll into the country, to see 

 what vegetation was there for bees and animals. 

 Across the Mahmondie Canal, on which the bales of 

 cotton coming from the country are conducted on 

 ships to Alexandria, dragged by four or five men, 



the fellahin of Egypt have built some mud villages. 

 At the Khedive's Garden of Nuzha (enjoyment), 

 the fellah village of the same name was built. I 

 was delighted to hear of a man having bees. I went 

 to him, filled with prejudice which I had received 

 from some travelers to the etfeot that the Egyptian 

 fellah would under no circumstances talk about 

 bees, or let his bees be seen. I was presented to a 

 man owning bees, and immediately the man 

 brought a ladder of six or seven steps, put it 

 against his house, and preceded me to the apiary, 

 which was on the house-top, consisting of 23 hives 

 of different shapes, irregularly made of mud of the 

 Nile, and one in a cement-barrel. He even offered 

 me some for sale at S4 OD each, which, after consid- 

 erable bargaining, he would let me have at $3.50 

 each. They were placed horizontally on each other. 

 In four rows, and besmeared with mire out of the 

 canal, which altogether secures them against the 

 occasional rains and warm sun during the long and 

 fearfully hot summer (or sun) months. The owner 

 seemed to know a few principal items of the bees, 

 as the existence of a duke (queen), drones, and 

 worker bees, or females; that in a favorable year 

 honey is taken twice by the bee-master coming 

 from Alexandria. He had read of bees, and, as he 

 said, could not judge how much honey was to be 

 taken, and how much left. The bee-master dis- 

 charges his duty conscientiously. When a swarm 

 issues he puts it into an empty clay or mud cylin- 

 der, and leaves it till the harvesting season, which 

 is about February or March, as near as I could 

 make out, partly from clover and partly from broad 

 beans. There is a second harvest about the month 

 of August, and which he thought is principally 

 from the trees in the immense Koyal Gardens. 

 Very likely they yield some honey, but more likely 

 the locust-trees by which the road is shaded give 

 him that same crop. 



The way this man kept his bees, harvested, 

 swarmed, and built his cylinders, was very much 

 like the average bee-keepers in Palestine; and when 

 I say the average, I thinkitis asinevery other coun- 

 try and with every other pursuit, that the greatest 

 number pursue their callingcarelessly.lt is all left to 

 Allah (God) and luck, meanwhile not moving a finger 

 toward luck. They are the laziest set of people you 

 ever saw, smoking or sleeping whenever they have a 

 chance, and this "chance" often presents itself. 

 In general they draw back from any innovation on 

 what " my forefathers did. I will stick to their ex- 

 ample; they knew well what they were about." 



I did not find this first apiary and the description 

 of the owner in accordance with what an Austrian 

 bee-keeper, who recently had traveled about the 

 Orient, described them to be. As he talks German 

 only, he could not find out e.vactly their way of bee- 

 keeping. He even says, "Not a single interpreter 

 could be found that could translate the word bcc in 

 Arabic;" but I found no difficulty in finding this 

 apiary above described, and I met with no draw- 

 back at all. The man never expected to be paid for 

 his information. The said traveler paid !¥3.00 to 

 whoever would let him know of the existence of an 

 apiary, and it was not until the fifth day that he 

 took hold of a bee; and with this trophy and the 

 $3.00 bucksheeeh he found some miserable-looking 

 apiaries, half ruined, and the others going to ruin 

 before long. Now, it is very common that such 

 passers-by, in a strange country, give their opin- 

 ions as facts, and utterly change the face of a 



