|
The bees swarm around the face of the Kurumba honey hunter as he
climbs up the vine ladder leading to the honeycomb high up in the cliffs of the Nilgiris.
The smoker set on fire to drive away the bees does not do its job fully and the tribal is
in danger of being stung before he completes his job. It is not only the bees that are a
challenge. The cliffs are so steep that it requires extraordinary courage or extreme need
to conquer them and reach the rare colonies built by the rock bee apis dorsata. The
nests are huge and can yield several kilograms of honey in a single harvest. It is a skill
handed down from generation to generation among the Kurumbas, a tribe in the Nilgiris less
known than, say, the Todas or the Badagas. Honey hunting is such a precisely carried out
operation that the man responsible for holding the vine ladder at the top of the cliff is
always the brother-in-law of the man who climbs it. He literally holds his sister’s
fate in his hands!
The taste of the honey from the
rock bee is unique. It is forest honey, wild and bitter-sweet, quite different from the
cloying sweetness of the honey derived from the hives in the backyards of bee-keepers. The
bees have collected the honey not from the common and garden plants to be found on the
plains, but from the rare species of flora growing on the hills. Should such a traditional
skill be allowed to die out or should efforts be made to perpetuate it and preserve it for
posterity?
 Before going into that question, a short description of the actual process of
honey hunting. The tribals first gather vines from the jungle and after testing the
strength string them together to form a ladder. The person chosen to collect the honey
undergoes some austerities and prays to the bees by singing songs in their praise. On the
day of the hunt, which falls only in a particular season (summer), the hunter is lowered
down the cliff face in the ladder. One man stands on top, while another is positioned half
way through to hold the ladder. The hunter reaches the comb with his bamboo spear and
slices through it.
The comb is an intricate structure of honey, wax, pollen
and larvae. While cutting it, the top part is never touched, because only then will the
bees come back to rebuild the honeycomb. The hunter, therefore, cuts off the middle and
bottom portions of the honeycomb and drops it into a bucket. Into the bucket also drip
golden drops of honey from the cut honeycomb. The honey is mixed with a lot of pollen and
has to be filtered before use. The beeswax that used to be thrown away by the tribals
earlier is nowadays being utilised to make candles and diyas.
These innovations have been brought in by Keystone, a NGO
based in Kotagiri and committed to the cause of preserving the skills of the Kurumbas.
They have taught them techniques to make their job easier and safer, introduced scientific
processes to remove impurities from the honey and are finally marketing it so that the
honey collector gets a good margin. Apart from working with the rock bee, Keystone, named
after a bird found in the Nilgiris, is also teaching other tribals of the area such as the
Irulas how to keep bee hives. The species in question is apis cerana, which is a
milder relative of the fierce rock bee.
 The brain and hard work behind Keystone is director Pratim Roy, his wife
Snehalatha, marketing expert Mathew and wife Annie, along with a team of local talent. As
one rushes to keep pace with Pratim and Mathew as they stride along little-traversed paths
to reach Keelcoupe village near Kotagiri, one feels that their efforts are important and
meaningful both to immediate economic needs and long-term ecological benefits. "
Apart from working with honey, Keystone also encourages the growing of organic pepper,
mustard and millets and markets these products," says Pratim Roy. They are involved
in a major project with international assistance to document ways to earn a livelihood in
the hills without cutting timber. They are also part of a conservation effort for the
Shola forests. These unique forests which are vital to the eco-system of the mountains
since they harvest rainwater, have come under severe threat from plantations.
Facts and figures state that India produces around 27,000
tonnes of honey a year, most of it from apis dorsata. But this is gradually
yielding place to apiary honey. Also, numerous bee colonies are yet to be tapped. The
efforts of organisations like Keystone should ensure that the taste of forest honey does
not vanish from our tables.
Ambujam Anantharaman
More articles
|
