On a blisteringly hot and humid day, after an unseasonable hour of rainfall, Roni Karlinsky was busy making sure his bees had enough water for their hives near the Gaza border.
“Bees feed on sugars and protein,” he explained. “They find the sugars in pollen, according to the seasons.”
He pointed to a nearby tamarisk tree, which would soon flower. “In the spring, it’s the citrus and avocado trees and the eucalyptuses that provide the pollen,” he said. “We move the hives according to the season.”
As a teenager, Karlinsky, now 72, was sent to the Kfar Silver youth village in southern Israel, where he worked in the apiary section. As an adult, he taught at a boarding school but, nearly two decades ago, became a beekeeper upon retirement.
His hives are located just outside the fence of Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) south of Ashkelon, where he has lived since 1982.
He extends a hand in greeting, apologizing that it’s sticky.
Biggest honey producer
To the public, Yad Mordechai is perhaps best known as the country’s biggest honey producer. Today, the Strauss food conglomerate owns 51 percent of the Yad Mordechai factory, with the kibbutz owning the rest.
The good news is that despite the ongoing war against Hamas, both the Agriculture Ministry and Yad Mordechai confirm that there will be no shortage of honey for Rosh Hashanah, the upcoming Jewish New Year, which begins on Wednesday evening.
“We’ve had enough for Rosh Hashanah for a few months already,” confirmed Oriana Tubul, the factory’s CEO since January 2023.
Karlinsky’s kibbutz-owned hives are among 4,000 spread countrywide that supply the factory with its honey. The plant also buys honey from some 60 private suppliers. Most honey is collected between April and May, with the factory processing some 2,000 tons yearly.
Because Hamas’s murderous invasion of the Gaza border area took place on October 7, at the end of the season, the factory was already close to its target.
Israelis consume around 6,000 tons of honey per year. Production in the country, including Yad Mordechai’s, totals around 4,500 tons. The remainder is imported, mainly from Spain.
Ido Dvir, who manages the factory’s purchase of raw agricultural material (which also includes olives), said the main damage caused to honey production during the past year was in northern Israel, where, due to almost daily attacks by the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, the vegetation on which bees depend has been burned along, in some cases, with the hives themselves.
“There’s damage, but not to the extent that will cause us a shortage,” he said.
During the first days after October 7, Tubul said, she focused on supporting the factory’s 40 workers. Another 15 work in the apiary, where the honey is separated from the combs.
During the second week, she and a few others loaded the factory’s stored honey onto four trucks, driving along backroads to spirit the golden material to storage in central Israel. On November 11, the factory reopened.
“People came back gradually. They were pleased to be active,” she said. “Some of our managers were evacuated but returned to work anyway. There were many booms [from IDF tank fire], and we finished early so people could get home before dark. Some people couldn’t function. We tried to give them space. There was a great feeling of togetherness.”
She added, “I am so full of admiration for the people who work here. There’s a glue here, something very strong. We balance work and emotional needs, but they know how important it is to get the products onto the shelves.”
During the fall, future queen bees spend a certain amount of time in incubators at 35 degrees C (95 degrees F) and 70% humidity.
On October 7, Karlinsky’s phone received an alert that the electricity in the apiary had failed. He rushed there to see what had happened.
Living so close to Gaza, he was used to rockets and the sound of gunfire from the Hamas-controlled enclave.
But this time, he saw the kibbutz security team approaching the weapons store.
“They knew what was happening in Netiv Ha’asara,” a moshav a seven-minute drive southwest, where Hamas gunmen murdered 22 of the community’s 900 residents. “And that the terrorists were on their way to Yad Mordechai,” Karlinsky continued. “They asked me to leave the apiary, which is near one of the kibbutz gates, and after a few minutes, the terrorists reached that gate.”
The security team, later joined by Border Police, managed to kill 37 Hamas gunmen at this and another kibbutz gate without sustaining any casualties, Karlinsky said. Elsewhere, the Hamas gunmen mowed down 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 to the Gaza Strip, 101 of whom remain there, not all alive.
The future queen bees died. But within two weeks of the attack, beekeepers and factory staff began to return. The beekeepers removed equipment and took around 1,000 hives north to Kibbutz Harel in the Jerusalem corridor, where, according to Karlinsky, “we improvised and grew more queen bees.”
Karlinsky returned to the kibbutz in November.
When asked whether his bees reacted to the sounds of war, he said he had no idea and that it was a subject for researchers.
Ido Dvir was born on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. His grandfather died defending it against an Egyptian invasion in 1948.
“Lots of kibbutz members have died during the wars. It’s part of the kibbutz history, ” he said, adding, “There are parallels between 1948 and October 7.”
During Israel’s War of Independence, Egyptian forces attacked and conquered Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. During the battles, 18 kibbutz members and eight Palmach fighters fell.
The fighters slowed the Egyptian army’s advance toward the country’s center, enabling the nascent IDF to stop it south of Ashdod.
On October 7, Yad Mordechai’s successful repulsion of Hamas gunmen helped stop the terrorists from reaching central Israel.
