GAZA/CAIRO (Reuters) — Standing on the roof of a war-damaged building overlooking the ruins of Gaza City, beekeeper Ibrahim al-Dabba gently lifts a honeycomb frame as bees buzz around him.

“Bees require trees. We are raising bees amongst rubble,” he said.

For Gaza’s beekeepers, the struggle to rebuild their livelihoods after more than two years of war is about much more than honey. It is also about preserving one of nature’s most important pollinators in a territory where farmland has been devastated and access to orchards near the border with Israel has been cut off.

Before the war, the beekeepers kept around 30,000 hives, according to agricultural engineer and beekeeper Rateb Sammour.

Honey production had already been declining from some 400 metric tons annually several years ago to roughly half that amount as climate change affected the flowering seasons.

The conflict dealt a far greater blow, however. Sammour, a well-known Gaza beekeeper and honey producer, estimates around 700 hives remain, with beekeepers dividing hives to help maintain the numbers.

Sammour puts the honey production at only 10% of what it was before the war.

Across much of Gaza, where vast neighborhoods remain reduced to wreckage, beekeepers are salvaging what they can. Some have placed hives on rooftops because agricultural land is inaccessible or destroyed.........

© The Times of Israel