1082 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



nafath dabash or nafath feem — Proverbs 

 5 :3, 16 :24, 24 :13, 27 :7 ; Canticles 4 :11. 



The hornets, dahareem, only were known, 

 and even in the case of Samson's riddle he 

 evidently confounds hornets and bees, as 

 the modern peasant in Europe will say bees 

 or wasps without distinction. As the haunts 

 of Samson were in the land of the Philis- 

 tines he may have seen bees; but he could 

 not distinguish them from hornets, and he 

 calls them by the same name. We lived 

 some twelve years about Timnath, Ekron, 

 and the borders of the tribe of Dan, and 

 could judge as beekeepers how erroneous 

 the statement must have been. Jackals 

 abounded by the hundreds; and when an 

 animal dies it is laid beside the road and 

 jackals feed on the carcass; yet for several 

 weeks the skeleton is not clean enough to re- 

 ceive bees. Hornets, which are carnivorous, 

 swarm about carcasses by the hundreds; and 

 as the dabareem and bees had one name the 

 confusion was easy, and he brought the 

 riddle to the Timnathites. 



The Arabs call the hornets dahaheer, or 

 dabiir in the singular. As the hornets are 

 very voracious they build their nests under 

 ground or under the cactus hedges about 

 Ramleh and Jaffa, whex'e they find plenty of 

 food — carcasses by the wayside, and fruits, 

 or bees when they can g-et at them. We lost 

 dozens of colonies before we knew how to 

 fight the hornets, and later found the only 

 remedy possible was to remove the hives to 

 desolate places where neither fruit nor car- 

 casses abound. 



The passages in the Old Testament, tho 

 not absolutely against honey of bees, rather 

 prove the minor article to have been meant. 

 Among the articles brought to David in Ma- 

 hanaim for his retreating army we find 

 wheat, barley, beans, lentiles, butter, and 

 dabash— TT. Samuel 17:29. No doubt the 

 same articles were used by the Turco-Ger- 

 man army on their march toward Egypt in 

 1914 and 1915 — at all events about Hebron. 

 Dibs was put before the soldiers always, not 

 honey, which, being rarer, was reserved for 

 the statf and pashas. 



Ezekiel mentions the articles exported to 

 Tyre and Sidon from the land of Israel — • 

 wheat and balsam, dabash and oil — Ezekiel 

 27 :17. The quantities exported indicate 

 the abundant and inferior article to be 

 meant. Vineyards were known all over the 

 country, and the vine and the fig-tree are 

 mentioned everywhere, while beehives were 

 altogether unknown, and had no name in 

 ancient Hebrew. 



Bees are well known to the Arabs by the 

 name of nahel, and swarms are called tard. 



The beekeeper is a nahal, and a beekeep- 



ing village is the beekeeper's nahalin. Na- 

 lieel is also used in some places for a swarm, 

 meaning a young bee. This shows the de- 

 velopment of the word nahel, a bee, derived 

 from nah, sighing, distinguishing it from 

 da-bur, one who flees, blows, etc. 



After the Captivity, beekeeping was very 

 possibly introduced by the returning Jews 

 or Egyptian and Assyrian settlers. The 

 prophet Isaiah, inspired by some who had 

 seen bees in their native lands, says, " And 

 it shall come to pass in that day that the 

 "Lord shall hiss for the fly (I'zebub) ihsit is in 

 the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, 

 and for the bee (v'la'deborah) that is in 

 the land of Assyria, and tliey shall come and 

 shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, 

 and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all 

 shrubs, and upon all bushes" — Isaiah 7:18, 

 19. Struck by the curious sight of swarms 

 hanging on shrubs and bushes in Egypt and 

 Assyria, or taking possession of clefts in the 

 rocks, the returning captives foresaw the 

 days when the same strange sight would be 

 seen in Palestine, as many other foreign 

 commodities had been introduced by them. 



Modern Jews have lost contact with their 

 original country, ha\ing been separated al- 

 most entirely from it for at least fifteen cen- 

 turies, and it is rather with modern fellahin 

 that the old manners and customs and even 

 religious rites of the Hebrews are still 

 found. Islam was founded partially on 

 Judaism and partially on Christianity, and 

 therefore they have preserved Moses and 

 the Mosaic law, and all the prophets of the 

 Old Testament as well as Jesus (Esa), the 

 son of the virgin Mary, adapting them to 

 Arabic ways. 



Nice, France. 



Probably the Odor of Newly Gathered Aster 

 Honey. 



While working about some hives here in 

 Columbus, since the University opened this 

 fall, I noticed on many occasions that the 

 hives had a very sour smell. I could often 

 smell this odor when standing from ten to 

 fifteen feet away from the hives, and at 

 other times it was not perceptible until 

 I opened the hives. I noticed the same odor 

 was present about some hives I voluntarily 

 inspected in a small town south of Columbus 

 last week. Can you explain what this odor 

 indicates, or what circumstances or combi- 

 nation of conditions cause it? 



Columbus, 0., Oct. 17. John Eckert. 



[We should judge from what you write 

 that your bees have been working upon the 

 asters. There is usually a peculiar odor 

 when they are working on aster bloom. 

 Some people call it sour, some call it a rather 

 offensive odor. — Ed.] 



