Honey hunting in Nepal

"Some villagers in Nepal depend on honey hunting for their livelihood, and the country is home to the Apis laboriosa, which is the biggest honeybee on the planet. These bees construct their hives on the cliffs of the country’s foothills, and watching the honey hunters at work is a sight to be seen. Due to the location of the bee hives, honey hunters make use of rope ladders and baskets to get to the combs after the bees have been flushed out with smoke by lighting a fire underneath the hives."



Full article here with more amazing photos here - The Honey Hunters of Nepal

I stumbled upon this documentary about these fellows today. In addition to the hunting, there are great examples of other daily life in nepal. A must-watch for anyone interested in bushcraft, etc.

and there are these guys selling it from where i bought and find it really nice

https://mad-honey.com/collections/all

Burra Maluca wrote:"Some villagers in Nepal depend on honey hunting for their livelihood, and the country is home to the Apis laboriosa, which is the biggest honeybee on the planet. These bees construct their hives on the cliffs of the country’s foothills, and watching the honey hunters at work is a sight to be seen. Due to the location of the bee hives, honey hunters make use of rope ladders and baskets to get to the combs after the bees have been flushed out with smoke by lighting a fire underneath the hives."

Full article here with more amazing photos here - The Honey Hunters of Nepal

Also see Mad Honey Hunting Community

Honey Hunting in Nepal has been around the Globe since centuries and has been practiced till date. Honey Hunters from the Himalayas are primarily known for daring and adventurous activity.

honey hunters

Rusty Shackleford wrote:I stumbled upon this documentary about these fellows today. In addition to the hunting, there are great examples of other daily life in nepal. A must-watch for anyone interested in bushcraft, etc.

What an incredible tradition. The Apis laboriosa are remarkable not just for their size but for their behavior, they build single-comb open hives on vertical cliff faces specifically to exploit thermal regulation, which no domesticated species does. The whole system, bees and hunters both, has co-evolved over centuries.


One thing that often gets overlooked in coverage of Nepali honey hunting is how the Gurung communities manage harvest timing around the rhododendron bloom seasons. Spring honey from high-altitude rhododendron nectar has very different properties from autumn harvests, something the hunters have always understood intuitively. There's a good breakdown of the seasonal differences and the ecology behind it at allaboutmadhoney.com if anyone wants to go deeper.