The Buzz on the Environment Bee-fore Tu’Bee’Shevat
Shabbat
Bo, January 19, 2013
Beth
Boyer
So there’s this bee, and she’s been out gathering
nectar and returns to her hive. She sees a sister just sitting at the hive
entrance. “Why are you sitting here, why aren’t you out collecting
nectar?” She asks. “Well,” replies the
sister, it’s starting to get cold, there’s not much in the way of flowers
blooming right now, there’s not much to get.”
“Not true,” replies the first bee. “There’s a Bar Mitzvah at the synagogue
down the street. There are tons of flowers, believe me, you’ll have plenty to
choose from.” Her sister thanks her and flies off towards the synagogue. She
returns later and sees the first bee just heading out from the hive again. “Did
you find the synagogue?” she asks. “Sure did, I just came back from there and
I’m full of nectar!” replies the second bee. “What’s that on your head?” asks
the first bee. “It’s a kippa” says
the second bee. “I know it’s a kippa,
why are you wearing it?” “I didn’t want them to think I was a wasp!”
When someone learns that I am a beekeeper, the first
thing they ask me is whether I get stung, and doesn’t that hurt, and why would
any sane person mess around with bees—they’re dangerous, right? So let me begin
by dispelling some myths about bees, then we’ll discuss honey and bees in the
Torah, and Tu B’shevat. What we all need to understand about bees is that they
are actually very gentle creatures. People think I’m kidding when I say that; almost
everyone has been stung at some point in their lives, and almost always those
stings are attributed to bees. However, bees, and this applies to all bees;
bumble bees, carpenter bees, honeybees, mason bees, and many other native bee
species, are not aggressive. Wasps, on the other hands, or members of the Vespid
Genus, do tend to be more aggressive. Only females, of both types of insects,
bees and wasps, sting. The reason is that the stinger is a modified ovipositor,
or the organ a female uses to lay eggs. Males don’t have this organ, so they
cannot sting. My kids are able to tell the difference between a worker bee, or
female, and a drone, or a male bee. They will get a drone to crawl on them and
freak out their friends, who don’t know that the drone cannot sting. It’s great
fun.
But the stinger of a bee has barbs on it. And when
the bee inserts the stinger into a target, which could be you, when the bee
moves away, or when you brush it off you, the stinger remains in you. This
kills the bee. It is not, therefore, in the bee’s interest to sting unless it’s
really necessary to do so, because if she does, she will die. Vespidae on the
other hand, do not have a barbed stinger. Some, like yellow jackets, make their
nests in the ground where people and pets can easily step on them, at which point,
they all come out to defend their nest. With no barbs on their stingers, they
can sting multiple times and survive. Almost all stings people receive are the
result of wasps, not bees. We have three
large colonies of bees in our back yard, hopefully I’ll be able to add one more
colony this spring. Each colony has in the neighborhood of 50,000-100,000 bees,
so in my 1 ½ acre yard I have about 300,000 bees during the height of summer.
We also have a swimming pool, a swing set, a hammock and a great area for
playing ball, all within 20 yards of the hives. In the 7 years we’ve had bees,
we have never had one person stung in our yard who was engaged in recreational
activities. I have been stung when I’ve been working in the hives, but seldom,
and usually because a bee is particularly agitated and is defending her hive,
her queen and her honey.
So now that you’re all convinced that bees really
are gentle creatures who mean you no harm, let’s go on to dispel some other
myths. Throughout the Torah, Israel is called, “Erezt zavat chalav u d’vash,” The land that flows with milk and
honey. The honey mentioned is generally not considered to be what you and I call
honey. Many scholars believe the d’vash
in the Torah is date honey. It’s easily made by grinding dates together with
water. By saying the land flowed with milk and honey, God was telling the
Israelites that the land would support their way of life. To have milk, you
needed to have goats and sheep. To have those animals, there needs to be
sufficient grass for them to use to pasture, and rain to nourish the grass. To
have honey meant there was also ample room for agriculture, even date trees,
which require large amounts of water to nourish them. To a desert-people, a
land flowing with milk and honey meant a land which would sustain them, their
animals and their crops—because there was water. It also meant a place where
both herders and farmers could live together; the entire Israelite community
would be supported and nourished by the land.
So back to what we call honey—the product of bees. There
are times when bee-honey, or honey-comb is mentioned in the Torah. There’s a
very strange story of Samson, Shimshon,
in Judges, 14:8, taking honey from bees out of a hive that was living in the
skeleton of a lion which Shimshon had
killed a year earlier. In Psalms, 19:11, David wrote, “The fear of the Lord is
pure, abiding forever; the judgments of the Lord are true, righteous
altogether, more desirable than gold, sweeter than honey, than drippings of the
comb.” There is a reference to bees—devarim—in
Isaiah, 7:18, and a few verses later honey is mentioned, we assume from the
bees.
But there are now scholars who believe that at least
some of the 55 references to honey in the Torah are in fact referring to bee honey.
In recent years, scientists and archeologists have uncovered significant
archeological evidence of a thriving beekeeping industry during the time of the
Kings. In 2007, the Near Eastern Archeology Review published a fascinating
paper (fascinating to me, anyway) on the extensive findings of an apiary—the
Latin word for a bee-yard—in Tel Rehov
in the Beit Shean valley.[1]
That is south of the Kineret/Sea of Galilee,
about one half mile west of the Jordan River. Excavations at the site uncovered
a commercial operation of more than 100 clay bee hives located in the center of
a very populated city (more evidence that bees pose no danger to people).
Dating of the beehives indicate they are from about 960-870 BCE, placing them
during the second Iron Age. To provide context to that time period, Solomon’s
temple was completed in 960. In 930 the land of Israel was split into the
Northern and Southern kingdoms, and around 900 is when many scholars date the
Torah as having been written (those who don’t believe it was written by Moses).[2]
These are the earliest managed bee hives ever discovered, and they were found,
where else, but in the land of milk and honey! Long before this time, in fact
in pre-historic times and there are cave drawings to prove it, early humans
hunted bees for their honey, which still takes place in some cultures today.
The very careful observer of detail in the Torah
will notice something about honey that seems to be incongruous. That is that
honey seems like a food that ought to not be kosher. After all, food
from non-kosher animals is not kosher. A common example given camel-milk. The camel
is not kosher, so neither is food that comes from it. A honeybee is not kosher,
you can’t eat one, so why is honey kosher? The reason given is that honey is
not produced by the bee. Let me explain what honey is, exactly. The worker bee leaves the hive and goes to a
flower. The flower produces a sugar, fructose, in the form of its nectar. The
nectar is not only sweet, it smells wonderful, and bees’ highly sensitive
antennae smell the nectar and are drawn to the flower. They gather the nectar
by sucking it up, and as they do, they rub up against the stamen of the flowers
which contain pollen. The pollen gets stuck all over the bee’s little hairs and
as a bee flits from flower to flower gathering nectar, and gets deposited on
flowers as she goes from one flower to another, which is what fertilizes the
flower and allows it to develop.
The bee carries the nectar back to the hive in what
is called her honey stomach, and it combines with an enzyme the bees produce.
Once in the hive, the bee deposits the nectar into a wax cell and then the bees
flutter their wings over the comb to evaporate some of the water in the nectar.
When it has reached 18% water content, it is thick and viscous, what we call
honey. It’s evaporated flower nectar, with some enzymes added in. Then the bees
cover the comb with a thin layer of wax to prevent more dehydration. Since the
bees don’t produce the honey, the way a camel produces milk, it is considered
kosher, as it is not technically the product of the bee. And of course, 18% is
very interesting. Nectar becomes honey at that particular percentage of
moisture, at Chai!
Honey, while important as a source of sweetener, is
just a small gift that we receive from bees. The real benefit of bees is not
their honey, or their wax (used for light, in art and in early metal casting),
it is the pollination services they provide to flowers. Often, when we think of
flowers, we think of tulips, daffodils, roses, hydrangeas, the flowers people
plant around their yards or use in bouquets as decorations and gifts. But the
vast majority of flowers are not ornamental; they are the precursors to our
food. Think of a fruit or a vegetable. This is a very abbreviated list of foods
that develop as a result of having been pollinated by bees: okra, onion,
celery, beet, mustard, rapeseed (canola), broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage,
turnips, peas, beans, peppers, cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, cashews, almonds,
brazil nuts, chestnuts, apples, watermelons, cantaloupe, oranges, grapefruits,
strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, lemons, limes, coconuts, coffee,
avocados, grapes, tomatoes, and really the list goes on. It is said that every third
bite of food humans consume is the result of insect pollination, and honeybees
account for 80% of that pollination. Without bees, we would not have fruits and
vegetables or many nuts (most grains are wind pollinated). We wouldn’t have
much to wear other than skins or wool, either, since cotton and flax are both
pollinated by bees. Without bees, we would starve (and we’d wear itchy clothes
while starving).
That is why several years ago when mass die-offs of
bees began to occur, scientists throughout the world were alarmed. Economists
were as well, since bee-pollinated crops are estimated to have a value of $217 Billion
per year![3]
The problem was termed Colony Collapse Disorder, and it caused the death of
between 30-90% of large commercial beekeepers’ colonies of honeybees. Given the
value of food produced by the bees, this is a huge concern for us all. The
problem has been studied extensively for the past several years and while there
is no definitive answer as to what has caused Colony Collapse, the consensus
view among scientists is that it was caused by a combination of disease and
pesticides that weakened the bees, making them more susceptible to more disease.
Many scientists outside of the US, have identified a pesticide from a class
called neonicitinoids, imidicloprid being one of the most common. Your tree
company will often use it to inject in the ground, it is taken up by the trees
and becomes present in every part of the plant, including the nectar and
pollen. I didn’t mention it earlier, but bees actually consume the pollen they
bring back to the hive as well, it serves as their protein source, while honey
becomes their carbohydrate.
Bee die-offs have leveled off the last few years,
and are holding steady at about 30-40% of colonies. This is not, however,
sustainable. There has already been significant impact of fewer bees on many
agricultural products, especially almonds in California. Industrial farmers of
other crops are also finding it difficult to obtain sufficient pollination;
there just aren’t enough bee colonies to be trucked around from field to field
as there used to be. The result is not only higher food prices, as supply
diminishes, it also causes less biodiversity and lower nutrition, as food may
have to be brought in from farther and father distances, including being flown
in from other countries—where neoticitinoids are banned, by the way.
So what does any of this have to do with Parashat Bo, and with Tu B’shevat? From looking at the plight
of the world’s honeybees, it’s not too hard to foreshadow a plague—perhaps not
of locusts, but instead of darkness. When we don’t pay attention to our
environment, when we poison it, we poison ourselves as well. The plagues
visited on Egypt were a result of the Pharaoh’s hardened heart. By hardening
his heart, God didn’t prevent Pharaoh from letting the Israelites leave Egypt,
rather, he removed the fear that would have fallen on any mortal confronted
with the awesomeness of God. This allowed Pharaoh to behave as he was already
inclined to. His true colors, so to speak, shone through in his refusal to
permit the slaves to depart, not wanting to understand that forcing them to
stay was destroying Egypt. We are like Pharaoh in some respects. Here it comes,
we’re living in denial, and no, it ain’t just a river in Egypt! We are in
denial of the damage that monocultures and large factory farms do to our
ecosystem. We are in denial about the dangers of pesticides. Not just to bees,
but to our food and water supply, and to us and to our children.
Luckily, Jewish environmental organizations are
coming to the rescue. Here’s where Tu
B’shevat comes in. Tu B’shevat is
the birthday of the trees. It was important because the Torah requires we
abstain from harvesting from trees in certain years, for example, the first
three years they bear fruit, and having a birthday allows us to identify the
age of a tree and therefore to know when we are allowed or prohibited from
harvesting from it. But the holiday has more recently evolved into a special
day that highlights environmental awareness and action. It was fascinating to
look up the words tu b'shevat and
environmentalism together in google and see 118,000 results. Jewish
organizations from the most earthy-crunchy to the most Orthodox have all jumped
on the environmental bandwagon, and with good reason. It is part of our
tradition. During the middle ages, Jewish mystics developed the Tu B’shevat seder, at which a variety of
fruits and nuts are consumed. Of course, we now know that those fruits and nuts
are the result of pollination by bees.
Today, the Tu B’shevat seder is often a celebration of nature, and has been fostered by many remarkable organizations in the Jewish world. Among these are COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. Their mission is to deepen and broaden the Jewish community’s commitment to stewardship and protection of the Earth through outreach, activism and Jewish learning. Another is Hazon, whose mission statement includes: “We start with the belief that engaging Jews in environmental education, action, and advocacy changes them, their families, their institutions, and the community as a whole.”
The Isabella Freedman Center is
another such program. They strive to create transformative experiences that
integrate ecological awareness, vibrant Jewish spirituality and social justice.
They sponsor a program called Adamah,
which is a leadership training
program for Jewish young adults to teach the vital connection between Judaism
and environmental stewardship.
I’ve provided a list of links to
Jewish organizations working in the area of environmental stewardship, as well
as important facts about pesticides in the handouts. In addition, there is a list of trees, shrubs and flowers that provide important nectar and pollen
sources for bees in our area. Feel free to visit the web sites listed to learn
more about what they do. You may not want to take up beekeeping, but even if
you don’t, you can help bees. The most important thing you can do is speak with
your landscaper and tree care companies and tell them you do not want any
pesticides of any kind used on your property. Every time you see a yellow sign
warning of a pesticide application, think of it as a tombstone for a bee
colony. The companies will tell you it’s impossible to do their job without the
chemicals. It’s not true, but you may need to find a different landscaper.
Don’t use mosquito sprays, ever. They are deadly to bees and poisonous to
people, especially children, and they don’t do anything to interrupt the life
cycle of the mosquito. For more tips on avoiding pesticides, visit the Audubon
Center in Greenwich, they have a rich set of resources for how to landscape
without pesticides. Here's a link from Audubon on Seven Good Reasons to Create Organic Lawns and Gardens. We can all work together to help bees!
Finally, I’d like for us to read
together a prayer in our sourcebook by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. Please look
at page 39.
Rabbi Nachman’s
Prayer
Master of the Universe, grant me the ability to be alone.
May it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grasses,
Among all growing things,
There to be alone and enter into prayer.
There may I express all that is in my heart,
Talking with Him to whom I belong.
And may all grasses, trees and plants
Awake at my coming.
Send the power of their life into my prayer,
Making whole my heart and my speech through the life and spirit of growing things,
Made whole by their transcendent Source.
Oh! That they would enter my prayer!
Then would I fully open my heart in prayer, supplication and holy speech;
Then, O God, would I pour out the words of my heart before Your Presence.
Master of the Universe, grant me the ability to be alone.
May it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grasses,
Among all growing things,
There to be alone and enter into prayer.
There may I express all that is in my heart,
Talking with Him to whom I belong.
And may all grasses, trees and plants
Awake at my coming.
Send the power of their life into my prayer,
Making whole my heart and my speech through the life and spirit of growing things,
Made whole by their transcendent Source.
Oh! That they would enter my prayer!
Then would I fully open my heart in prayer, supplication and holy speech;
Then, O God, would I pour out the words of my heart before Your Presence.
I’ve brought a small bee hive with
me, no bees, and will be happy to show it to people during the Kiddush.
Shabbat shalom!
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