Honey hunting

Honey hunting or honey harvesting which involves robbing honey from wild bee colonies is one of the most ancient human activities and is still practiced by aboriginal societies in parts of Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. Some of the earliest evidence of gathering honey from wild colonies is from rock painting, dating to around 13,000 BC. Robbing honey from wild bee colonies is usually done by subduing the bees with smoke and breaking open the tree or rocks where the colony is located, often resulting in the physical destruction of the colony.

Nepal

Honey hunting in Nepal is a part of the indigenous culture in many parts and hunters have hunted for thousands of years.

A documentary by freelance photo journalists Diane Summers and Eric Valli on the Honey hunters of Nepal documents Gurung tribesmen of west-central Nepal enter the jungle in search of wild honey where they use indigenous tools under precarious conditions to collect honey.

Another instance of honey hunting has been documented by National Geographic Magazine in Twice a year high in the Himalayan foothills of central Nepal teams of men gather around cliffs that are home to the world's largest honeybee, Apis laboriosa. As they have for generations, the men come to harvest the Himalayan cliff bee's honey.

This was also documented in a BBC2 documentary in August 2008 entitled "Jimmy and the Wild Honey Hunters-Sun". An english farmer travelled into the Himilayan foothills on a honey hunting expedition. The world's largest honeybee, Apis laboriosa is over twice the size of those in the UK where their larger bodies have adapted to the colder climate for insulation. The documentrary involved ascending a 200 foot rope ladder and balancing a basket and a long pole to chisel away at a giant honey comb of up to 2 million bees and catch it in the basket.

The harvest ritual, which varies slightly from community to community, begins with a prayer and sacrifice of flowers, fruits, and rice. Then a fire is lit at the base of the cliff to smoke the bees from their honeycombs.