ISRAEL: An Israeli beekeeper sends his bees across the country's northern borders to produce aphrodisiac honey

Record ID: 395785

  • Title: ISRAEL: An Israeli beekeeper sends his bees across the country's northern borders to produce aphrodisiac honey
  • Date: 1st October 2007
  • Summary: CLOSE OF MAN POURING HONEY INTO A JAR CLOSE OF MAN CLOSING JAR EFRAIM EZOV, AN ISRAELI BEEKEEPER WHO PRODUCES APHRODISIAC HONEY, POURING HONEY INTO A JAR WIDE OF EZOV SPEAKING TO REPORTER (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) ISRAELI BEEKEEPER WHO PRODUCES APHRODISIAC HONEY, EFRAIM EZOV, SAYING: "During the past years this plant received the title of 'The local Viagra substitute'. For vari
  • Embargoed: 16th October 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVABHXVLQBGSBXF61U0G2WBQA8K7
  • Story Text: An Israeli beekeeper has discovered a natural resource to replace the chemical aphrodisiac Viagra: honey produced from a rare Mount Hermon plant.
    Efraim Ezov who produces the innocently labelled "Hermon Honey", explained that the honey is produced from various plants growing on the snowy top of Mount Hermon, which straddles the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria. But the everyday sweet fluid receives its unique attribute from a plant called Zalu'a, which is widely known in Arab countries as a natural aphrodisiac.
    "During the past years this plant received the title of 'The local Viagra substitute'. For various reasons, sheikhs or other people in many places don't allow the public to use the Western medicine known as Viagra. But still, people sometimes need a medicine to improve their performances,"
    Ezov told Reuters Television at his small shop in the northern Israeli community of Matat.
    When he was told about the rare plant, Ezov began studying it and discovered that the Zalu'a can only be found on the Arab side of the tinderbox border, where it mainly grows on the Lebanese slopes of Mount Hermon and on a mountain range called Anti-Lebanon.
    In order to allow his bees to collect the Zalu'a nectar, Ezov placed his beehives as close to the heavily guarder border as possible.
    "The bee, which has an efficient migration range of at least one kilometre, does not care about the border, and the border meeting point for it is just a locator of a little less of these flowers and more of other flowers.
    But the bee can go a kilometre or two and even more into other countries, and they do that," he explained.
    Ezov, who specialises in producing honey that draws on the special qualities of various medicinal herbs, places between 40 to 70 beehives on the Israeli slopes of Mount Hermon during the three months a year in which the Zalu'a blossoms. In a good year, he says, those beehives produce up to a tonne of what he refers to as "my special honey".
    He sells the golden fluid for some 60 shekels ($14) a kilo, but since this year's weather limited his honey production by about half, Ezov had to slightly raise its price.
    When people enter Ezov's shop, they don't always know about the speciality of the house. But Ezov says it was his clients who motivated him to seek for the natural aphrodisiac effective for both men and women.
    "During the past three or four years, clients of mine -- who buy Hyssop honey and Persian Hyssop honey from me, as well as other kinds of honey with qualities just as good -- also asked me to bring them honey that could work as a substitute for Viagra. So I decided to take my beehives up to those areas where this plant grows in August or July," Ezov said.
    "There have been not so young people, sometimes in their 60s or 70s, who tell me that's what keeps them going," he added with a smile.
    But slight ignorance does not mean lack of interest: men and women shopping for honey at Ezov's shop expressed curiosity mixed with some embarrassed bursts of laughter.
    Avi from central Israel giggled and said he might be willing to try it.
    Raya Koren, a woman who left the shop with loaded plastic bags, was a bit more direct.
    "I bought a lot of honey, three kinds of honey. One of them is very interesting," she said and laughed. When asked if she was going to try it herself, she replied: "Yes, I hope I'll try it with my boyfriend... I hope... I'll tell you what will be the results."
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