Today’s Haaretz has the story of the world-wide bee shortage, which has led to a world-wide honey shortage. This is a problem for Jews come Rosh Hashana time, seeing as apple and honey, eaten together, are one of the symbols of the festival. The English version of the story is shorter than the original Hebrew - because the translator apparently had enough sense to omit some of the usual Haaretz nonsense.

The Hebrew version, inexplicably, blames the bee shortage on high oil prices.

I translate (the last sentence of the first paragraph): “The rise in oil prices, climatic change and other ecological developments - have all come to fruition in the honey jar, and are causing the worst honey shortage in years”.

So I understand from this that oil prices are affecting honey production. Right?

Not exactly.

As one continues to read the story, one discovers that although production has, in fact, been affected by climate and environment change, the main problem is a disease that is killing off bees worldwide.

Nothing to do with oil prices. Nothing at all to do with oil prices. So how did that sentence get there? And why wasn’t it cut by editors and proof readers?

Is it perhaps that an ‘It’s the oil, stupid’ moment is always welcome and acceptable, even if completely irrelevant?

And you wonder why only 7.4% of Israelis read Haaretz (Hebrew link).

Update: By the way, in case you were worrying, I haven’t noticed a shortage here. I just bought a big pot of honey from a friend at work. His neighbor in his moshav keeps bees and produces the honey independently. And the local supermarket seems stocked up as usual, for the time of year.