I once asked my beekeeping mentor, Rabbi Dick Israel (z"l), where in the Torah and other laws it said that honey was permissible to be eaten.

His reply:

From the Talmud:

Shabbat 78a: Is honey used more as a medication or as a food? It is used
for both equally.

Shabbat 140a: You may not prepare medicines on Shabbat. May you make a
mixture using honey on Shabbat. No, it is too medicinal in character.

Yoma 83b Someone is seized with a pathological hunger fit on Kippur.
He may be given honey which should help him.

Baba Kama 85a Honey is harmful to a wound. (In reality it is equally
harmful to healthy and diseased tissue, but is likely to cure a wound.)

Bekhorot 6b We would not have been offered a land of milk and honey
and not been given permission to eat it.

Bekhorot 7b Honey is a permissible food.

In the codes, bee pieces do not trayf things up because they are
either like the bones of a permissible animal or like ashes, which
are not trayf.

Richard J. Israel

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