Syrian honey and the Syrian bee

Honey does not come alone on a Syrian breakfast table. It sits next to clotted cream, tahini and jam, and it is taken up with bread. Behind the jar stands a subspecies that belongs to the region: the Syrian honey bee. Its range runs from northern Syria through Lebanon into Palestine, and past the Jordan Valley into Jordan.

Its place at the table

The sweet corner of the breakfast tray is built from clotted cream, tahini, jam and honey. Honey is often stirred into tahini and spread on bread; together the two read as less sweet than honey alone. Olives and za’atar share the same tray, so the job of honey is not to end the meal but to balance it.

What the Syrian bee is

It is the region’s own honey bee, Apis mellifera syriaca. Beekeepers speak of two local strains. The sayyafi is small, swarms a great deal and has a sharp temper; it builds its combs parallel to the hive entrance, and that is the first sign that tells it apart. The fanami is larger and darker, with grey hair on the workers’ abdomen, gentler, and more highly regarded among beekeepers.

Why commercial beekeeping is leaving it

The reasons are on record: low yields, a strong tendency to swarm, and aggression. Italian and Carniolan queens are imported into the region for that reason. Against this the local bee has a habit of its own. When a hive loses its queen it keeps several virgin queens alive at once, holding them until a new one has mated, so the colony does not end up queenless.

What the local bee withstands

The reasons for keeping it are on record too. When the oriental hornet or the bee-eater attacks, the workers stay inside the hive; by refusing to fly out they cut their losses. The colonies stay largely free of the pollen beetle, and the difference shows when they are set beside Italian colonies in the same area. A 2013 study found their hygienic behaviour comparable to that of descendants of the European Carniolan bee.

Buying a jar

The claim of baladi honey is common in the market, and on its own it proves nothing. The questions are concrete: which area, which season, whose hives. The safest route is a shop that names its source, or the beekeeper directly, because syrup feeding is a known problem in the honey trade and you cannot tell by looking at the jar.