Yemeni beekeeper Muhammad Saif inherited the profession from his father and grandfather before him, but the honey industry, long a pride of Yemen, has become an impossible task in a country torn apart by bitter internal war for years.
Beneath the Valley of the Mist in Taiz in the poor southwest of the country, bees buzz, and Saif stands by rectangular hives wearing a protective helmet, opening one with his bare hands to release the bees.
In addition to the internal conflict, which has been going on for more than seven years, beekeepers face the additional challenge of climate change and rain.
Before the war, Seif had 300 hives, but now their number does not exceed 80 hives.
The United Nations reports that “about 100,000 Yemeni families are engaged in beekeeping and rely on it as their sole source of income.”
Usually beekeepers move from one region of Yemen to another depending on the season of production in search of flowering plants, but the internal war has changed everything.
In addition, drought and low rainfall pose an additional threat to honey production in Yemen, where low rainfall has affected vegetation cover and reduced bee feeding.
