Royal Jelly Viewed as ‘Miracle Cure’ in Iraq

Iraq's Honey Industry Slowly Trickles Back
By John Johnson Jr., Los Angeles Times (USA), 4/8/2006

BAQUBAH, Iraq — Alwan Abdal Razzaq, a balding man in a green suit, holds up a vial of opaque fluid.

"This is the queen's food," says the 47-year-old beekeeper. "It is $20 for a vial."

Known here as a miracle cure for everything from arthritis to headaches, royal jelly, the sickly sweet substance that bees feed to a larva to turn it into a queen, is a valuable commodity in rural Iraq, where folk remedies are a common alternative to modern medicine. Especially when modern medicine has become so expensive as to be out of reach for many…