Honey: Yemen's Liquid Gold

No one considers Yemen an agricultural or trading powerhouse today. Though it is the most densely populated Gulf country, Yemen imports most of its food and raw materials and, unlike its neighbors to the North and East, does not have large oil reserves. In the past, however, travelers and traders referred to the area as “Arabia Felix” – Happy Arabia – as a result of Yemen’s incredible agricultural wealth, trading savvy, and commodity production. Yemeni coffee, incense, and honey, together with its strategic position along East-West trade routes, formed the basis of this famed wealth.
Yemen no longer exports incense. The coffee trade remains negligible, despite a recent resurgent interest in Yemeni coffee. Qat cultivation has almost destroyed the region’s former agricultural versatility. As a result, Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to the UN.
One Yemeni product remains just as famous, rare, and expensive as always, however. Connoisseurs consider Yemeni honey the best in the world, and Yemeni apiculture strives to maintain and develop this reputation.
Honey has a long history, not only in Yemen, but all over the world. Ancient Egyptian art sometimes depicts beekeeping, several historical works mention the practice, and one even finds reference to honey in the Quran. “And your Lord inspired the bee: build homes in mountains and trees, and in (the hives) they build for you. Then eat from all the fruits, following the design of your Lord, precisely. From their bellies comes a drink of different colors, wherein there is healing for the people. This should be (sufficient) proof for people who reflect.” (16:68-69).
Yemeni apiculture remains traditional. The best Yemeni honey comes from Hardamawt, and harvest occurs in the winter months. Yemeni beekeepers harvest their honey using an ancient, all natural method - they smoke the bees out of a hive, then scoop out and prepare the honey by hand. Many beekeepers are nomadic, following their swarms, moving to places where flowers and trees known for yielding quality honey abound. Not only are the beekeepers nomadic, but they refuse to use modern techniques to protect and nourish their hives. Western apiculturists often introduce chemicals or pesticides into hives that destroy parasites, and at times supplement a hive's natural diet of nectar with sugar water. The idea of using such techniques is anathema to Yemen's beekeepers.
Ali, who runs the Beit a-Nahl shop in the Tahrir area, looked disgusted when he spoke of supplementing a bee’s diet. The reason, he explained, is purity. Yemeni honey comes directly from flowers – the beekeepers provide no supplements for their bees, nor do they use pesticides to control the parasites that might easily decimate a hive. Yemeni honey, then, is completely unadulterated, and the Yemeni honey business is subject to the will of nature.
“Bee keepers cultivate bees, not flowers,” Ali told me as he indicated different honeys and where they are from. “They move around with the bees. It is a nomadic sort of business.” Ali has been working with bees for most of his life. “I became interested in apiculture because of my family,” he said. “They were beekeepers. I love this business because it requires patience,” he continued, scooping up some honey and watching it run slowly off of the spoon and back into the container. “One can’t rush honey.”
Entering a Yemeni honey shop, one is struck by the sheer variety of honey types and honey products. I asked Ali to explain the differences between honeys, and how they are classified. His answer shocked me in its similarity to how we classify Scotch.
“Different flowers yield different tastes, colors, and effects,” he said, indicating the row of different colored honey on the counter. “There are honeys that come from only one flower, and these are more expensive.” In other words, Yemeni apiculturists divide honey into single and blended malts, if you will, with a corresponding effect on price. They further classify the honey by flower and region, as well as medicinal properties.
Ali, along with every other person I spoke to, claims that the best honey is Sidr honey, Nobody hesitated a moment in giving this answer – it was an automatic response. “This honey comes from the Sidr tree,” he told me, “And we use it as medicine.” Its color is a deep, dark brown, and its flavor is complex, with a marked but not unpleasant medicinal aftertaste. A kilogram of Sidr, bought in the store, costs approximately sixty dollars. A quick internet search reveals that the price of Sidr honey can rise to two hundred dollars per kilogram when ordered from abroad.
What can honey cure? According to Ali, just about every minor illness. “We use it for indigestion, for infection, for breathing problems, as an aphrodisiac.” One of the oldest medical papyri ever discovered concerns the preparation of a poultice for burns, and the main ingredient is honey. Folk medicines the world over include honey, and modern research suggests that honey does indeed have health benefits, as honey has natural antibiotic properties. Honey’s Ph hovers around 3.8, making it about as acidic as orange juice and preventing bacteria from colonizing. It is also more easily digestible and less deleterious for one’s health than glucose. “The simplest fact is that table sugar is a disaccharide, while honey is a monosaccharide, so that is one step in digestion already taken care of…honey [also] includes a number of digestive enzymes,” said Dr. Sally Chapman, head of the chemistry department at Barnard College. In 1985, the British Medical Journal published a study on the use of honey in treating juvenile intestinal conditions. The study found that “honey shortens the duration of bacterial diarrhea, does not prolong the duration of non-bacterial diarrhea, and may safely be used as a substitute for glucose in an oral rehydration solution containing electrolytes.” Additionally, honey is high in Vitamins A and B, and darker honeys are rich in minerals such as Potassium.
Beyond its taste and medicinal attributes, honey holds potential growth opportunities for Yemen. Unlike qat or coffee cultivation, apiculture requires little water, and, given its nomadic nature, is entirely sustainable. The cost of honey means that, on a small scale, it can compete with qat. Yemeni honey’s deservedly high price makes it a lucrative commodity for export as well, yet only about fifteen percent of locally produced honey finds its way into international markets. However, though Yemeni honey remains a commodity known only to a few, there is hope that it will assume a larger role in Yemen’s economy in the future. Scotch, for example, has grown from a niche market to an obsession in the West in a staggeringly short time. Yemen needs a natural product of the same quality and uniqueness, if not the same effect, and honey seems to fit the bill.