There was a time before people built their own hives for the purpose of hosting and raising colonies. A time when honey was a rare treat found only in the wild, and once people knew that honey was out there to be found, they wanted to learn to find more of it.

What is Honey Hunting?

Honey hunting is the practice of locating and harvesting wild honey bee colonies from natural habitats such as cliffs, tree hollows, or caves. It predates domesticated beekeeping and represents one of humanity’s earliest forms of gathering animal products.

The earliest evidence we have for honey hunting are the rock paintings in the Coves de l'Aranya, which I covered in my primer on beekeeping. Similar depictions appear in African, Indian, and Southeast Asian prehistoric art. Given that honey bees originated in Asia and then spread into the Middle East and Africa, it appears that they were prized by people where ever they went, and for good reason: honey is an energy-rich food, the wax is extremely useful, and the bees themselves are effective pollinators.

Honey Hunting in Modern Africa

Among several Indigenous peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, honey hunting is not only a human activity but a cooperative relationship between humans and a wild bird, the greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator). This is one of the few documented examples of mutualism between humans and a free-living wild animal. Both species actively help each other for a shared benefit, and in this case they both get access to the contents of the plundered hive.

The Honeyguide's Job

The greater honeyguide is a small brown bird in the family Indicatoridae, found across tropical Africa. It has evolved a specialized diet that includes beeswax, bee larvae, and leftover honeycomb debris. Being a small bird, however, it can't break into a hive by itself.

When a honeyguide detects human activity, it gives a distinct chattering or piping call and performs a conspicuous guiding display. It flies between trees, moving a short distance at a time, and pausing to call again. If anyone follows, the bird will lead them directly to a wild bee colony, often located in a hollow tree or high cliff crevice.

The Hunter's Contribution

Groups such as the Hadza of Tanzania, the Yao of Mozambique, and the Borana and Oromo of Ethiopia have traditional honey-hunting systems that rely on these birds. Their essential contribution to the deal is to bring the hive down and open it up.

They often use smoke to calm or disperse the bees, then they open the hive with axes or knives and extract the honey. After taking the bulk of the honey and comb, they leave behind wax, larvae, and other fragments. These are the foods that honeyguides depend on.

It's a reciprocal system: the bird leads the human to the hive, the hunters expose the hive and take the majority of the honey and comb, and the bird feeds on the leftovers.

Communication with the Birds

Recent research (notably by Claire Spottiswoode et al., published in Science, 2016) demonstrated that honeyguides truly respond to human signals intentionally and are not simply following people opportunistically. This suggests that the partnership has been maintained over tens of thousands of years, possibly since early humans began exploiting honey in Africa.

The Yao people, for example, use a distinctive whistling call to attract honeyguides, which research has shown increases the likelihood of being guided by up to threefold compared to silence.

Himalayan Honey Hunting: The Gurung and Magar Tradition

High in the rugged mountains of central Nepal, along the steep cliffs that overlook the valleys of the Annapurna and Lamjung regions, lives the world’s largest honeybee, Apis laboriosa, the Himalayan giant honeybee. These bees build massive open-air combs, sometimes over a meter wide, on vertical cliff faces exposed to the sun but protected from rain. For centuries, the local Gurung and Magar communities have risked their lives to harvest the honey from these cliffs, in a practice known as honey hunting (madhu kataney).

The Setting and the Bee

Apis laboriosa is unique to the Himalayan region, found at elevations between 2,500 and 4,000 meters across Nepal, Bhutan, northern India, and parts of Tibet. Its colonies cling to overhanging cliffs, often hundreds of feet above the ground, safe from bears and most predators. Each colony can contain tens of thousands of bees, and their honey has distinct properties depending on the seasonal flora.

The spring honey, made from Rhododendron nectar, often reddish in color and mildly hallucinogenic or intoxicating due to grayanotoxins; it’s locally known as “mad honey.”

The autumn honey, on the other hand, is produced from alpine and forest blooms. It is lighter, milder, and considered safe for daily consumption.

Getting the Honey

The honey hunting expedition is a highly ritualized community event, conducted twice a year (typically April–May and October–November). It involves careful planning and traditional craftsmanship. The ladders, for example, are fashioned from woven bamboo or jungle vines, sometimes hundreds of feet long. In some villages, nylon ropes now supplement traditional materials.

A lead hunter, often an elder known for experience and bravery, is lowered down the cliff face carrying a smoking torch made of green leaves or pine needles to drive bees away. Others on the ground stabilize the rope and assist in collecting the combs in baskets.

The combs are cut with long poles fitted with crescent-shaped knives. The pieces fall into baskets or nets held below. Some combs are left intact to allow colony regeneration.

Rituals Surrounding the Hunt

Before every hunt, the community performs ceremonies honoring the forest spirits, local deities, and the bees themselves. These rituals include offerings of rice, flowers, and prayers for safety. Honey hunting is considered sacred, not merely economic. The lead hunter abstains from meat or alcohol before the climb, and only men participate directly, though women prepare offerings and songs.

The Gurung and Magar believe the bees are guardians of the forest, and disrespecting them can bring misfortune. Each hunt thus reinforces communal identity, ecological respect, and intergenerational continuity.

Even as modernity encroaches, a few elder hunters still lead the climbs each year, keeping alive a tradition that may date back thousands of years, one of humanity’s last living links to our prehistoric partnership with wild bees.

Honey Hunting and Forest Beekeeping in Medieval Europe

Before the widespread use of movable-frame hives, Europeans obtained honey primarily from wild or semi-wild bee colonies living in hollow trees within vast forested regions. This practice, known in later centuries as “forest beekeeping” or “tree beekeeping,” developed directly from ancient honey hunting traditions and remained central to rural economies well into the Middle Ages.

European Forests: Historical Context

During the early and high Middle Ages (roughly 500–1400 CE), much of central and eastern Europe was covered by dense woodland. These forests, such as the Białowieża Forest (in modern Poland and Belarus), Rus’ forest zones, and the Teutoburg and Ardennes forests, offered ideal conditions for wild European honey bees (Apis mellifera).

Monks, peasants, and forest dwellers collected honey and beeswax from these natural hives, often under lordly or monastic regulation.

Honey was the primary sweetener in medieval Europe before sugar reached the continent, and beeswax was in constant demand for candles, especially in churches and monasteries. This made forest bee trees valuable economic assets, sometimes even recorded in manorial ledgers and tax rolls.

The Advent of the Bee Tree

By the 10th–12th centuries, hunters began managing wild colonies rather than merely harvesting them. They selected living trees, often oaks, lindens, or pines, with large cavities. They would cut access holes, called “bee boards” or “boards” in Slavic and Germanic records, and insert cross sticks or comb supports to provide added structure to the hive. These managed trees became heritable beekeeping sites.

Forest beekeeping was not a casual pursuit, it was an institutionalized rural profession governed by law and custom. There were guilds and brotherhoods of beekeepers in regions such as Prussia, Poland, and Russia. Theft or destruction of a bee tree was a serious offense, punishable like the theft of livestock. Monasteries and nobles frequently leased forest rights to beekeepers in exchange for honey and wax tributes. Charters from the 12th century mention “honey tithes” owed to abbeys like Cluny, Fulda, and Saint Gall.

Decline and Legacy

With deforestation, population growth, and the expansion of agriculture from the 15th century onward, traditional forest beekeeping declined in Western Europe. Managed hives near settlements became more practical than maintaining colonies deep in forests. However, remnants of the practice survive to this day.

In Poland and Belarus, bortniks still maintain bee trees as part of cultural heritage programs.

The UNESCO-recognized tradition of barć (Polish tree beekeeping) in Podlasie preserves centuries-old methods.

Thus, the medieval European honey hunter was not a primitive figure but a forest craftsman, straddling the line between hunter and farmer, whose work sustained both rural economies and sacred traditions.