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September, 2007
Even in Mideast, Bees Know No Borders
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer
MOUNT HERMON, Golan Heights - From a dry riverbed on this
frontier mountain, under a fortified outpost where Israeli
troops peer out at their Syrian enemies, Efraim Ezov sends
his Israeli honeybees on daily sorties into Syrian airspace.
The result _ dark, herb-flavored and reputed to enhance
virility _ is a unique honey from two countries that have
been waging hot and cold war for six decades.
"Borders are a human system. Bees have no borders," said
Ezov, wearing a white protective suit and mask. The air was
thick with yellow-black insects buzzing between their wooden
hives in Israeli-controlled territory and the pollen-rich
flowers across the front line, just 500 yards away and
sealed to human traffic.
As the 50-year-old beekeeper and an assistant puttered among
their hives within sight of Syria, tensions between the two
countries were peaking because of a very different Israeli
incursion into Syrian airspace.
In this latest flare-up, Israeli fighter jets attacked a
target in Syria on Sept. 6, according to Syrian officials,
who condemned the strike while remaining curiously vague
about its details. Israel has not commented on the
mysterious incident, leaving foreign media to report various
versions _ that the planes destroyed a North Korean nuclear
installation in Syria, attacked an arms shipment to
Hezbollah guerrillas, practiced a strike against Iran or
tested Syria's air defenses.
None of that tension was evident several days later at Mount
Hermon, where Israeli and Syrian forces face each other.
The mountain is divided among Syria, Lebanon and the Golan
Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967
Mideast War. The two armies fought again in 1973, and since
then the front has been peaceful.
Ezov chose Mount Hermon for his hives because of the
distance from human settlement and agriculture, with its
pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and because the
mountain is home to about 250 species of wild plants that
exist nowhere else. He says pollen from all of those plants
together gives his honey its distinctive taste and purity.
The key ingredient is ferula hermonis, a flower known
locally as zallouh. It was familiar to the doctors of
ancient Greece and the Islamic world for its effectiveness
in improving libido and fertility, according to Stephen
Fulder, an Israeli biochemist and pharmacologist who
specializes in herbal medicine.
But although preliminary studies have shown some success
with rodents, no studies have been carried out on humans and
there is nothing conclusive to back up zallouh's reputation,
he said.
That has not dampened the plant's popularity, especially in
Lebanon, where it is dubbed "Lebanese Viagra."
Zallouh presents a problem for Israelis, because it exists
only on the Syrian and Lebanese sections of Mount Hermon.
It was only because of the 1973 Mideast War that Avinoam
Danin, one of Israel's foremost experts on local flora, got
to see zallouh plants.
The war left Israeli forces briefly in control of the Syrian
part of Mount Hermon until an armistice was signed. Danin
said he and colleagues got permission from the army to make
a rare field trip to the Syrian slopes, photographing
zallouh plants and bringing samples before the territory _
and its zallouh _ reverted to Syrian control.
But bees can range more than half a mile from their hives,
frontiers notwithstanding, and in the summer blossoming
season Ezov's 1.5 million bees buzz over the Syrian border
and gather zallouh pollen.
Ezov then markets the product in Israel for $7 per one-pound
jar under the name "Galilee Aroma Honey."
"Many people believe zallouh increases sexual abilities,"
said 60-year-old Hussein Aghmia, an Israeli Arab customer
for Ezov's honey who prides himself on being a maven of
local vegetation and its healing properties.
"Since ancient times, Hermon honey has been known as the
best there is, and this honey is A-league," he said. |
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