Have a Sweet New Year with Honey Fun Facts

 

• It is a tradition on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, to eat apples or challah dipped in honey as a wish for a sweet new year.
• In the Torah, Israel is called “the land of milk and honey,” because its climate is ideal for grazing animals and growing flowers.
• People have collected honey from bees since prehistoric times. In Tel Rehov archeologists found clay beehives which are over 3000 years old!
• In Israel today, there are more than 90,000 beehives in over 6,000 locations around the country. Most of the honey they produce is sold at Rosh Hashanah time.
• To make one pound (half a kilogram) of honey, bees must collect nectar from two million flowers.

Excerpted from What's The Buzz? Honey for a Sweet New Year by Allison Ofanansky and photographed by Eliyahu Alpern.

Visit a bee farm, and follow the bees, as they carry “kisses” from flower to flower, and return to their hives with their tummies full of nectar. Learn how the honey is extracted from the combs and makes its way from the hive to the table, to be enjoyed with slices of apples for a Rosh Hashanah treat.