Carrying bags in hand, eyes wide open to hunt bees to raise for honey

(Baonghean.vn)- While professional beekeepers often raise Italian and industrial bees in a nomadic style, people in Thanh Chuong (Nghe An) catch bees themselves to raise for honey.Spring is also the time when honey bee hunting enthusiasts go out with their bags and eyes open to find bees.

A group of people went into the forest to hunt bees. Photo: Tran Dinh Ha

For many months now, on sunny days, Mr. Nguyen Van Tu in hamlet 8, Thanh Thinh commune, Thanh Chuong district and many other middle-aged and elderly people in Thanh Thinh, Thanh Huong, Thanh An and Thanh Thuy communes, Thanh Chuong district have gone into the forest to hunt for honeybees.

In addition to rice balls and drinks, each person carries a net made of gauze and two “bait” nests. The net is used to catch bees and the bait nest is used to lure them back. The bait nest is a curved piece of wood, usually jackfruit wood, drilled and hollowed out in the middle, both ends sealed and with a small door in the middle.

After the winter solstice, the weather gets colder, so honey bee colonies living in the wild will begin the process of finding a place to hive and avoid the cold. In early spring, the bee colonies will find a place to build a nest to begin the process of reproduction and honey production. In both of these processes, the bee colonies will assign the task of finding a place to live to a number of bees. These bees are called visiting bees.

These visiting bees fly everywhere and often look for old trees with many holes to find shelter for their swarms. The bee hunter will bring a racket and bait nests to approach, use the racket to catch them. Then skillfully put them in the bait nests and seal them tightly, locking the bees in for about 1-2 minutes before opening the door.

By habit, the bee will go in and out to explore the nest of the bait bees, then it will fly away to call its friend. After about 3 - 7 minutes (depending on the distance of the bee swarm), there will be 3 - 4 more bees flying back with the old bee. After a period of exploration, these bees will fly away again, followed by about 10 - 15 more bees flying over. From the time the first bee is caught and brought into the nest until the end of the process of successive waves of bees arriving is called the bee visiting process. This is the time when the bee hunter is so nervous that he holds his breath.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tu, Thanh Thinh commune (in blue shirt on the right) is examining the point where the bait nest is hung. Photo: Dinh Ha.

If after 3-7 minutes the bees do not return, the bee hunter knows he has failed and must find another one to repeat the process. If he is lucky, the bees will return. This is the most exciting and joyful moment of the bee hunting profession. Whoever brings back the beehive is considered lucky and will be cheered and congratulated by his fellow bee hunters.

After the bees have all entered the nest, the bee hunter will use a tool like “that me” to cover the hole and bring the whole bait nest and the bees inside home, starting another process called bee spreading. From the compact bait nest, the bees will be spread to other larger nests. This nest is called the breeding nest, made of hollow jackfruit wood, shaped like a barrel but smaller, with two ends sealed with two pieces of wood, with two doors.

Before filling the hive, the beekeeper opens one end of the hive, uses pure honey to smear a little on the top of the hive wall to attract the bees and create a place for the bees to gather there. Then, using his hands, he gently and leisurely picks up handfuls of bees and puts them into the hive.

From here the bee colony will begin the growing process to work after 2-3 months through the flowering season to produce honey-filled hives.

After 3 batches, each hive can harvest 6-12 bottles of honey. This honey is similar to the honey found in the forest, called pure wild honey. Currently, the price is about 350,000 VND for a 650 ml bottle, 5 times higher than industrial honey. Mr. Nguyen Van Tu and many bee hunters in Thanh Thinh each have 10-30 hives, earning 25-100 million VND per year.

On this occasion, some professional bee hunters often catch a lot of honey bee colonies, not only to raise them but also to sell to other households in need at quite high prices, from 500,000 VND to 1 million VND depending on the number of bees in the colony.

Tran Dinh Ha

(Thanh Chuong Radio)