Beekeeping in the End Times explores effects of strange new weather upon local honey ecologies.
Local beekeepers are keen record-keepers of the weather and seasons. Attuned to their insects’ appetites and to intimate connections between hives’ inner rhythms and the lives of plants, apiarists have a grasp on subtle effects of climate change that are profound in their implications.
Bees across Bosnia and Herzegovina forage in nearly ideal conditions. And yet, local beekeepers are increasingly struggling to keep the honeybees healthy and alive. Ferid, a veteran beekeeper, complains:“Things we used to know—weather, calendar, and climate--have shifted.” As a consequence, this versatile beekeeper and author of many beekeeping manuals, concludes: “The life of the bees and the beekeeper’s know-how are now coming apart.”
The book conveys what beekeeping looks like in this coming apart of human knowledge and bees’ and plants’ lives. What concerns the local beekeepers the most are surprising new shifts in apian and plant relations that do not strike a lay observer as catastrophic.
Such as the fact that honey seems to be vanishing. A highly intricate substance that defines the honeybee, honey comes through the flowers’ and bees’ love-making. Honey is the cornerstone of the bees’ famously complex culture. Honeybee as such, is no more. For the local Muslims, this is a statement of gravest concern, for honey is not only a vital food for the bee and a cherished medicinal remedy. It is the fruit of divine revelation bestowed upon a bee, a rich sign of sweet bond between the Nurturer (Rabb) and the world. For the local Muslims, to put it simply, there is no world without bees.
The book as a whole makes a case for an eco-eschatology while suggesting that little known features of Islamic thought and Muslim practice hold deep insights for living in the present as if it were the end times.
Open Access:
https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/projects/beekeeping-in-the-end-times
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