Let It Bee Four Hundred and thirty-five miles north of Addis
Ababa, the route climbs into a harsh, mountainous landscape
where ancient rock-hewn churches appear out of nowhere. This
area is known as Lallibela. Some of Ethiopia’s best honey
producers can be found in Lallibela where high-altitude bees
whip up a prized white honey that can only be made from the
flowers which blossom on this region’s most vertiginous peaks.
The bees and their keepers are part of an ancient honey-making
tradition that dates back to medieval times. The History of
Honey in Ethiopia King Lallibela, who ruled Ethiopia in the late
12th and early 13th centuries, was given his name - which in
Agew means 'the bees acknowledge his supremacy' - due to a swarm
of bees said to have surrounded him at his birth. His mother
took it as a sign of his future reign as Emperor of Ethiopia,
and the holy town was consequently named after him. Considered
to be Ethiopia’s ‘liquid gold’, honey may have been carried by
the Queen of Sheba when she travelled