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 *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm