Wild Honey Harvesting

Wild Honey Harvesting has been practiced from ancient times, the cave paintings and written records demonstrates that the Mad Honey Hunting has been practiced by ancient people and has been transferred from generation to another. The process is known as mad honey hunting and is performed by skilled Gurung Honey Hunters of Nepal in Nepal.

Although, practices of Wild Honey Harvesting is carried out in several countries, Nepal is famous for the process of Honey Hunting.

I live in the southeastern US and once upon a time had three Warre beehives. All three colonies absconded so I assume they made homes for themselves in the wild. Every time I see a honeybee now I wonder if I found a wild colony how I'd go about capturing them and collecting their honey.

Leigh Tate wrote:Every time I see a honeybee now I wonder if I found a wild colony how I'd go about capturing them and collecting their honey.

I've only read about it, but what I understood was that if we make our environments bee-friendly, particularly housing, the bees will come. I see so many people putting up bird feeders, but not nearly as many putting up birdhouses. We tend to cut down dead trees because we think they're ugly and dangerous, rather than making cavities in them, so the bees have a place to build honeycomb.

The one wild bee colony my neighbor noticed on his land, he described as being in some sort of a large stump. I never saw it.

Jay Angler wrote:I've only read about it, but what I understood was that if we make our environments bee-friendly, particularly housing, the bees will come.

I think this is an important point. Especially if we are considering wild harvesting of honey. Care should be taken to ensure the survival of the wild colony by transferring them to good hive and making sure they have enough stores to rebuild.

I don't know much about honey bees, but I would worry how you could tell how much honey the bees had and whether they could spare any if they weren't in easy to check frames like you have in a hive. Feeding wild bees by maintaining habitat for flowers for as long a season as possible, possibly providing water as well in arid areas, will help strengthen populations.