Honey hunters harvest treetop treasure
ULU MUDA, Malaysia — On a moonless night deep in the Malaysian rain forest, two men perched precariously on high branches use a smoking torch to draw thousands of bees from a treetop hive, braving the angry swarm to collect their prized honey.
The honey hunters, as they are known, are groups of villagers who head to remote corners of the jungle every year in search of the rare nectar, hidden in towering tualang trees.
“This is the real thing,” said Abdul Samad Ahmad, 60, who has been harvesting honey in this way for more than 20 years.
“There’s a lot of nutrition in this honey. You can make it into medicine, for your cough or cold.”
Like New Zealand’s manuka honey, also hailed for its supposed medicinal qualities, Malaysian tualang honey is expensive, fetching 150 ringgit ($38) a kilo — a huge amount for people from poor, rural communities.
But the generations-old practice faces myriad threats, from environmental destruction and falling bee numbers to a lack of interest among the young.
The die-hard hunters remain optimistic — for them, there is no greater buzz than climbing trees 75 meters tall to gather honey made by bees gorged on sweet nectar from exotic jungle flowers.
The honey-collecting season in northern Malaysia’s Greater Ulu Muda forest runs from February to April, when giant honey bees arrive from other parts of Asia to make their hives in the trees that stretch high above the rain forest canopy.
On a recent trip, Abdul Samad and six others worked through the night, slowly moving around the tree’s many hives and only stopping just before dawn, having collected 43 kilograms of honey.
Used to pain
The hunters were stung numerous times but continued working, insisting they are used to the pain.
One of the group, Zaini Abdul Hamid, said he and his fellow hunters are not aware of any deaths resulting from the risky pastime, “but if you’re in the wrong place, at the wrong time, the bees will sting you until your body is swollen”.
None of those on the recent expedition were younger than 45, with some in their 60s, and they said younger people from their villages have no interest in taking up honey-hunting.
“They’re not brave,” said Mohamad Khairi Mohamad Arshad, while Zaini lamented that the younger generation “prefer to play with their gadgets — we asked them to come, but they’re not interested”.
The number of bees in the Ulu Muda forest appears to have fallen in recent years, and the problem may be global. Experts have long been sounding the alarm about declining honey bee populations worldwide, blaming climate change and disease as well as habitat destruction.
“The places where the bees look for food are disappearing,” said honey hunter Mohamad Khairi Mohamad Arshad, 50.
“If there aren’t a lot of flowers, then the bees will not come.”