- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
Iraq honey production at the mercy of heat and drought
An oppressive heat beats down on the central Iraqi province of Babylon, where drought and rising temperatures are hitting bees and honey production hard.
Beekeeper Mohamed Aliawi knows it all too well as he checks on dozens of hive boxes placed at the feet of tall palm trees in the fields of Al-Reghila village.
"There is no water and therefore no (flowering) plants to keep the bees satisfied," Aliawi, the deputy director of a local apiarist association, told AFP.
The earth is cracked, and growing melons and watermelons proves difficult due to a lingering drought and intense July temperatures often reaching around 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) -- which take their toll on bees too.
A bee needs to constantly forage for the pollen and nectar necessary for honey production. It is in constant movement, usually travelling hundreds of metres (yards) to find its bounty, said Aliawi.
But the drought is forcing bees to travel longer -- up to five kilometres (three miles) -- to pollinate.
"This impacts the lifespan of the worker bee", the female bee that gathers pollen and nectar, Aliawi explained.
"Under optimal circumstances, the worker bee can live up to 60 days, but in this current situation it only lives 20 days."
In addition, bees thrive in temperatures of around 30-35 degrees Celsius, not in searing heat, when the thermometer climbs to 50, said Aliawi, the manager of a private honey producer.
He has moved dozens of bee hive boxes from central Iraq to seven sites scattered across the mountains of the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, where the air is cooler and the land greener.
"If we don't move the bees they suffer," he said.
- Relocating hives -
On a hot July day, Aliawi and his team wore protective headgear before inspecting the bee hive boxes and the honeycombs inside.
They wafted smoke over the hives with a bee smoker, a procedure known to calm the insects.
In the early 2000s, each bee hive yielded about 20 to 25 kilograms (44-55 pounds) of honey per year, whereas now the quantity has plunged to merely five kilograms, Aliawi said.
According to the United Nations, Iraq is one of the five countries in the world most impacted by some effects of climate change.
Authorities say Iraq is going through its fourth-straight year of drought.
The country has been plagued by scorching summers, declining rainfall and frequent sand storms, while upstream dams have reduced the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run across Iraq.
Despite these woes, the head of the apiarist department at the agriculture ministry, Hashem al-Zeheiri, remains optimistic.
Honey production is "increasing year on year", he said.
In 2022, honey produced in parts of Iraq controlled by the Baghdad federal authorities reached 870 tonnes, while in Kurdistan 850 tonnes were produced -- up from about 700 tonnes in each territory the previous year.
Zeheiri said he has prepared a study on the benefits of moving bee hives from southern and central Iraq to Kurdistan, and vice-versa "according to needs", in order to improve yields.
- Sand storms -
The United Nations Development Programme said in a 2020 report that "beekeeping has existed in Iraq... for an estimated 8,000 years", with "recipes that use honey for medicinal purposes" inscribed on ancient Sumerian tablets.
In modern times, beekeeping in Iraq is dominated by men, but that has not stopped Zeinab al-Maamuri.
She developed a passion after discovering beekeeping through her late husband, who had taken it up as a hobby.
Three decades on and now in her early 50s, Maamuri has 250 bee hives in the province of Babylon, dozens of which she keeps in the courtyard of the family house.
She lamented the effects of a warming planet on her bees.
"The rise in temperatures affects bees... the queen stops laying eggs" when it is too hot, Maamuri said.
And during the frequent sand storms that buffet the country, "if the bees are out, half will not return".
C.Cassis--PC