Bible, Bees and Boxes

Abstract

This article tells the story of beekeeping in Palestine in the late Ottoman and early British rules. It focuses on a French-Swiss missionary family, the Baldenspergers, who introduced “modern beekeeping” to the area through the adoption of a new technology—the movable-frame beehive. Bees thus began to move to completely new places, produce different kinds of honey, and revolutionize the ecological and economic systems. The adoption of particular technological measures, by this manner, helped the family demonstrate that the land was literally “flowing with milk and honey.” As the governing rule increasingly encouraged this process, resistance came from other directions. In this regard, I examine theft as a way to resist to the creation of a holy land. I position the story of honey production in the larger context of European colonialism at the turn of the twentieth century, and the global search for “the ultimate race of bees.”

Keywords:

• honey
• Holy Land
• beehive
• history of technology
• Ottoman Palestine
• British Palestine
• Baldensperger
• “a land flowing with milk and honey”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tamar Novick

Tamar Novick is a PhD candidate in the History and Sociology of Science Department, University of Pennsylvania. Suite 303 Claudia Cohen Hall, 249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104–6304, USA ([email protected]).