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Gilles Fert, France
Syria is a dream place for those interested in beekeeping. Syria has a specifi race of honeybees, large melliferous areas, and traditions that have remaine unchanged from long ago- all these contribute to a desert land buzzing with Geographical situation Syria is situated in the heart of the Middle East; it is mountainous country crossed by the Euphrates River coming down from the Turkish mountains in the North. Desert covers 60% of the country's surface area. The fertile Euphrates Valley produces cotton and sunflower seeds, and Syria's coastline stretches 180 km along the Mediterranean, giving the country an important commercial outlet. This coastal area is the most important area for Citrus, grapes, olives and many other fruits. The well developed irrigation system of the valley is admired by agronomists the world over. a
The Euphrates Valley is the birthplace of farming: 12,000 years ago humans settled in the fertile crescent and developed the first sowing and harvesting techniques. Just like farming, the technique for breeding honeybees in terracotta hives was first developed in this part of the world.
Some traditional apiaries made of horizonial hives still exist. In the desert areas of the Eastern part of the couniry, hives are made of interlaced plant material covered with mud. However, increasingly the cork tree trunk hives and the terracotta hives are now replaced by simple wooden boxes one metre long
Density: 83 inhabitants/kin? Area: 184,000 km?
Capital: Damascus Main towns: Homs, Aleppo, Hama Average monthly salary: 120 Euros Main language: Arabic and 15 cm wide. These are always placed horizontally and piled up to constitute apiaries of over fifty colonies. In these hives the honeybees make small honeycombs better able to resist strong heat. In the region of Maaloula - near the Lebanese border - the colonies are placed in niches inside house walls: sometimes there are up to a hundred hives per house, thus protected from high temperatures.
Indigenous honeybees Syria belongs to one of those countries lucky enough to still have an indigenous species and race of honeybee: Apis mellifera syriaca. These are found everywhere in the country as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and the northern part of Iraq. These yellow-coloured bees look like Italian honeybees (Apis mellifera ligustica), but are slightly smaller and with the last two tergites grey. The bees are very gentle in the eastern and southern parts of the country where the race has remained genetically pure. In addition, they are well adapted to their habitat and are resistant to droughts, unlike foreign bees which never survive more than one season. It is only on the Mediterranean coastline that the bees are highly crossbred with Italian and Carniolan (Apis mellifera carnica) bees, illegally imported by beekeepers. This, unfortunately, produces an aggressive breed which needs to be fed with sugar syrup during the winter season. This is the reason why most Syrian beekeepers wish to go back to the original indigenous bees and would like to start selecting a breed to be as productive as the foreign bees.
A beekeeper from the Al Lathquiyeh Region
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