Villa Tiferet
Safed, Israel
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Israel's Love Affair with Honey

9/26/2016

 
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As Israelis prepare for the Jewish New Year, honey becomes a supreme ingredient. We bake with it and we drizzle it over our challah at the traditional meals.
 
Walk into any grocery store this time of year, and you will sees jars and bottles of honey piled up front and center. Israelis stock up on it and enjoy it over the festivals.
 
Israelis Love Honey
As we are nearing this sweet time of year, there is no better opportunity to reflect on where honey comes from and how important it is.  So happily, Israel provides timely answers by offering its annual honey festival.
 
Israelis consume 4,000 tons of honey a year and 40% of honey (some 1,600 tons) is enjoyed from Rosh Hashana through Sukkot.
 
Honey…yummy
As we all have a sweet tooth, we should make time to take part in Israel’s annual honey festival. This year, the Traditional Honey Festival will be held from September 22 through October 29 at various bee farms across the country.
 
So gather the family and head to a local apiary. With 100,000 apiaries located across the country, there are many places to visit. Israel has 450 beekeepers (apiarists) who have placed some 60,000 apiaries in agricultural areas to help promote pollination.
 
Nature’s Prize Pollinators
Honey production has been practiced in Israel for thousands of years. It is a very important industry as bees help pollinate 80% of all crops including vegetables and fruits. Birds, bats and butterflies are the other pollinators.
 
Since bees are so important to our future crops, Israel has deemed it important to keep a check on their health. Israel is presently the only country in the world that insists beekeepers offer clean, water free of pesticides to their bees. The industry also monitors every hive.
 
Bees Love The Galil
Israel’s north is host to many bee farms. During the festival, many farms are open to the public. The apiarists will offer classes on the life of the honey bee, workshops on candle making from bees wax, honey cake baking and of course, honey tasting. Some will offer video presentations and information on the incredible healing benefits of honey including the products royal jelly and propolis.
 
Apiaries to visit in the Galil
 
Pirchei Hagalil, Moshav Monot
Kaveret HaBustan in Pekiin Druze Village
Dvash Machanaim
Ofir, Alon Hagalil
Yaarat HaDvash, allonai Abba
Galil Apiary on Kibbutz Shamir
Dvorat Ha Tavor, Lower Galilee

For more information on the festival, check out the Honey Council’s website

And here is information on apiaries across the country that you can visit.

 It’s no mistake that when Israelis send each other new years’ greetings, the word sweet (matok) is a big part of the wish.
 
So wishing you all a Shana Tova v’metuka, a happy and sweet new year!

Israel is for Twitchers

9/1/2016

 
Hoopoe Bird Hula ValleyPhoto by Itamar Grinberg for the Israeli Ministry of Tourism
We all know that Israel has long been considered the center of the world. Nestled between the three continents, Africa, Europe and Asia, great empires have marched through this small land bridge over millennia.

We also know that Israel is the seat of three major world religions. But did you know that Israel is set at an intercontinental junction, making it an important hub for birds?

Every autumn, 500 million birds fly across Israel, a bottleneck for migration routes that attracts some 540 species. To put this in perspective, the American Birding Association counts 976 species in the US -- yet Israel is just the size of New Jersey. With 540 species, there is much to see in one compact place!

Part of Israel’s secret is the country’s biodiversity. With Mount Hermon towering at 2200 meters in the north and the Dead Sea set at 440 meters below sea level (the lowest place on earth), there is an incredible diversity of birds, plants, wildlife and geology.

So if you love bird watching (and love it so much, you consider yourself a twitcher), consider a birding trip to Israel in the fall. The weather is superb – not too hot and not too cold. Skies are bright and deep blue, hosting an impressive array of birds.

Literally a terrestrial bridge, Israel offers birders a chance to view many species of shorebirds, owls, passerines, cranes, hawks, falcons, pelicans, herons, storks, allies, anseriformes and galliformes.

The best birding places are the Hula Valley, including Agamon Park and Hula Nature Reserve, Mt. Hermon, the Golan, Beit She’an valley and the Mediterranean coast.
In fact, all of these places are within a short drive of Tzfat! Just sitting on the roof of Villa Tiferet, you can see elegant storks and cranes circling, cresting upon warm thermal winds. Some 350,000 storks pass over Israel on their way to East Africa, their home for the winter. The fall skies are also filled with white pelicans and cranes. Here is a calendar of birding month by month. 
 
And don’t miss out on an opportunity to bird in the desert. Israel is such a small place, you can fit many diverse habitats (and many birds) into one trip. Be sure to head to the Dead Sea, the Western Negev and Nizzana.

November 20 to 27, 2016 Hula Valley Birds Festival

If you want to be part of the sixth annual bird festival, consider the Hula Valley Birds Festival

Developed by the Israel Ornithological Center, this week-long festival attracts birdwatchers from all over the world and captures the essence of the fall migration. Led by professional birding guides, the festival includes a mobile hide, ringing demonstrations, lectures and a chance to visit the best birding spots in the country.

If you are a birder and have not yet been to Israel to view the bird migrants, add this country to your twitching calendar…you may just add a lifer to your year list!
 
 
Israeli Birding Resources
http://www.tatzpit.com/site/en/pages/homePage.asp
http://www.birds.org.il/en/index.aspx
http://israbirding.com/
http://www.natureisrael.org/birding
http://www.natureisrael.org/Explore-Natural-Israel/Hula-Valley-Bird-Fesitval
 

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