Honey hunting or honey harvesting is the gathering of
honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...
from wild
bee colonies. It is one of the most ancient human activities and is still practiced by aboriginal societies in parts of
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
,
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
. Some of the earliest evidence of gathering honey from wild colonies is from
rock painting, dating to around 8,000 BC. In the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
in Europe, the gathering of honey from wild or semi-wild bee colonies was carried out on a commercial scale.
Gathering honey from wild bee colonies is usually done by subduing the bees with
smoke
Smoke is an aerosol (a suspension of airborne particulates and gases) emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwante ...
and breaking open the tree or rocks where the colony is located, often resulting in the physical destruction of the colony.
Africa

Honey hunting in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
is a part of the indigenous cultures in many parts and hunters have hunted for thousands of years. A
Honeyguide
Honeyguides (family (biology), family Indicatoridae) are a family of birds in the order Piciformes. They are also known as indicator birds, or honey birds, although the latter term is also used more narrowly to refer to species of the genus ''Pro ...
bird may lead humans to bee colonies.
Asia
Nepal
A documentary by freelance photo journalists Diane Summers and
Eric Valli on the Honey hunters of Nepal documents
Gurung
Gurung (exonym; ) or Tamu (endonym; Gurung language, Gurung: ) are a Tibetan people, Tibetan ethnic group living in the hills and mountains of Gandaki Province of Nepal. Gurungs speak Tamu kyi which is a Sino-Tibetan language derived from the ...
tribesmen of west-central
Nepal
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
entering the jungle in search of
wild honey where they use indigenous tools under precarious conditions to collect honey.

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
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...
documentary in August 2008 entitled ''Jimmy and the Wild Honey Hunters-Sun''. An English farmer travelled into the
Himalayan foothills on a honey hunting expedition. The world's largest honeybee, ''A. laboriosa'' is over twice the size of those in the
UK where their larger bodies have adapted to the colder climate for insulation. The documentary 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.
For centuries the Gurung people of the country of Nepal risked their lives to collect wild cliff-honey. Photos of Andrew Newey capture this dying tradition.
Bangladesh and India
In the
Sunderban forest, shared by
Bangladesh
Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...
and India's
West Bengal
West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...
,
estuarine forests are the area of operation of honey hunters.
They are known as "Mawals". This is a dangerous occupation as many honeyhunters die in tiger attacks which are common in this area. 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.
Indonesia
The traditional method of harvesting honey in
Riau Province is called Menumbai. This skill is performed by Petalangan people who live in the Sialang tree in the Tanah Ulayat forest area, Pelalawan. Menumbai Pelalawan is a way of taking honey from a beehive using a bucket and rope. To prevent the bees from stinging the body, the taking of the honey is accompanied by the recitation of mantras and rhymes. Menumbai Pelalawan is only done in wild bee hives and only in the afternoon.
Europe
Function
As early as the
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...
, people collected the honey of wild bees, but this was not done commercially. From the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...
it became a trade, known in German-speaking central Europe, for example, as a ''Zeidler'' or ''Zeitler'', whose job it was to collect the honey of wild, semi-wild or domestic bees in the forests. Unlike modern
beekeeper
A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees, a profession known as beekeeping. The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, or other receptacles. The beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper ow ...
s, they did not keep the bees in man-made wooden
beehive
A beehive is an enclosed structure which houses honey bees, subgenus '' Apis.'' Honey bees live in the beehive, raising their young and producing honey as part of their seasonal cycle. Though the word ''beehive'' is used to describe the nest of ...
s. Instead, they cut holes as hives in old trees at a height of about six meters and fitted a board over the entrance. Whether a colony of bees nested there or not depended entirely on the natural environment and that could change every year. The tree tops were also cut off in order to prevent wind damage.
Distribution
Extremely valuable, if not a prerequisite for tree beekeeping, were
conifer
Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...
stands. Important locations for honey hunting in the Middle Ages were in the regions of the
Fichtel Mountains
The Fichtel Mountains (, ; ) is a mountain range in Germany and the Czech Republic. They extend from the valley of the Red Main River in northeastern Bavaria to the Karlovy Vary Region in western Czech Republic. The Fichtel Mountains contain an ...
and the
Nuremberg Imperial Forest. In
Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
forest beekeeping is recorded as early as the year 959 in the vicinity of
Grabenstätt. But even in the area of today's
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, there was extensive honey gathering, especially in the then much larger
Grunewald.
In the area around
Nuremberg
Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...
there are still numerous references to an earlier flourishing honey hunting tradition such as the castle of
Zeidlerschloss in
Feucht. Honey was important for Nuremberg's
gingerbread production; the Nuremberg ''Reichswald'' ("The bee garden of the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
") provided plenty of it.
References
Literature and Film
*
Honeyland, 2019 documentary set in North Macedonia
*Eva Crane: ''The world history of beekeeping and honey hunting.'' Duckworth, London, 2000. .
* Hermann Geffcken, Monika Herb, Marian Jeliński und Irmgard Jung-Hoffman (Hrsg.): ''Bienenbäume, Figurenstöcke und Bannkörbe''. Fördererkreis d. naturwiss. Museen Berlins, Berlin 1993. .
* Karl Hasel, Ekkehard Schwartz: ''Forstgeschichte. Ein Grundriss für Studium und Praxis''. 2nd, updated edition. Kessel, Remagen, 2002, .
* Richard B. Hilf: ''Der Wald. Wald und Weidwerk in Geschichte und Gegenwart – Erster Teil''
eprint Aula, Wiebelsheim, 2003, .
* Klaus Baake: ''Das Zeidelprivileg von 1350''. Munich, 1990.
*Mark Synnott: “The Last Honey Hunter” p. 80. National Geographic. Vol. 232. No. 1. July 2017.
*
{{Hunting topics
Beekeeping
Non-timber forest products
Hunting in Nepal