When I visited the Dzong of Punakha, I've make a discovery. There were wild bees in large honeycombs up under the roof. These bees are protected. No honey collecting is allowed here. And then I thought about how beekeeping in Bhutan might be. The wild bees build huge honeycombs under the open sky, partly in rock shelters, in trees, or at the entrance of a monastery. In Nepal there are such honeycombs in very craggy rocks and it is very dangerous to collect honey there. This specific bee is called Kliffhonigbiene (literally cliff honey bee) in German, or better Apis laboriosa or Himalayan giant honey bee. It is the largest honey bee and its honey is considered particularly valuable. But honey hunting comes with a price – it is extremely dangerous. The traditional equipment of the honey hunters is modest. The Gurung people in particular collect the honey in there crevices [1]. While I' m reading this, I just remembered the old blessing of bees and also the German words for beekeeping and honey hunting.
German has own words for collecting wild honey and for beekeeping. The first is called Zeidlerei and the other Imkerei. These words are not used in English. There first one is called honey hunting (or honey harvesting – I disagree with the term harvest in this context as well as for instance in mussel harvest) and the other one is beekeeping in English. Before we look at the etymologies, we have to talk about the Lorsch Bee Blessing [2] from the 10th century, here's a short short excerpt:
Kirst, imbi ist hûcze
Nû fluic dû, vihu mînaz, hera
Fridu frôno in munt godes
gisunt heim zi comonne
(Old High German)
Christus, der Bienenschwarm ist draußen!
Jetzt flieg(t), mein(e) Tier(e), herbei.
Im Frieden des Herrn, im Schutz Gottes,
gesund heim zu kommen.
(Mordern German)
Christ, the swarm of bees is out!
Now my animals fly hither.
In the peace of the Lord, in the protection of God,
Come home healthy.
(Translation into Modern English)
And there is an Old English bee blessing, too. And there's an interesting aspect. The word for swarm of bees is ymbe. If you look it up, you'll probably find that it's a word for “hereabouts“ or „around“, which comes from Proto-Germanic umbe and the Latin ambi. But here it just means swarm of bees, which is close to the German word Imme, which is a poetic word for bee, nowadays hardly in use. It used to mean swarm of bees, the meaning of just bee has been coined at a later time. Here is an n excerpt from the Old English bee blessing „Charm wiþ ymbe“ [3]:
Wið ymbe nim eorþan, oferweorp mid þinre swiþran
handa under þinum swiþran fet, and cwet:
Fo ic under fot, funde ic hit.
Hwæt, eorðe mæg wið ealra wihta gehwilce
(Old English)
Bring earth to a swarm of bees, throw it with
your right hand from below
your right foot and say:
If I reach under the foot, I find it.
(Modern English)
Now, that was a long digression. But the difference between wild bees and domestic bees in beekeeping is important. As mentioned earlier, at the Punakha Dzong the bees and their honey are left untouched. What else do we know about beekeeping in Bhutan? It's more widespread in eastern Bhutan. I haven't seen any beehives myself, but the visit of the eastern part has been in the year 2000. However, we had a beekeeper in our small travel group, who bought Bhutanese honey and shared his experience with us in Germany. This honey tasted really good; I myself stopped eating quickly absorbable sugars like honey as they may increase insulin level. But beekeeping is important for completely different reasons, one wants to get honey for sure, but bees are important pollinators. And that's why the death of bees in Europe is a major problem in agriculture. This is not entirely unproblematic in Bhutan either.
In the wake of this research, I've found an interesting homepage on beekeeping in Bhutan [4]. Besides honey one wants to produce royal jelly, pollen, bee wax, bee venom, and propolis. This homepage informs us that there are Apis Cerana, or eastern honeybees, and western honeybees, Apis mellifera to be found in Bhutan. Out of the western honeybees there are Apis mellifera carnica and Apis meddifera ligustica. I was surprised that the harvest periods are devided into four seasons, a little bit like the flushs of the tea picking seasons. First Harvest Season in July with 80 percent White Clover Flowers plus 20 percent Mustard, Bush Berry & Various Wild Flowers; Second Harvest in August with Native Wild Flowers; Third Harvest in September with Buckwheat Flowers; Fourth Harvest in October with Native Wild Flowers (Singzam Flowers & Yesgurma Flowers) [4].
Besides this homepage I've found a review on „Status and Prospective of Beekeeping in Bhutan“ [5]. The authors tell us that there 18,000 bee hives in Bhutan and honey is popular, but the beekeepers cannot keep up with the demand for honey, which therefore has to be imported from India (to a certain degree). Honey is expensive, but as the Bhutanese society still is more happiness than money oriented the big run on bee hives has yet to set in. One of the obstacles might be the Bhutanese Buddhist philosophy as beekeeping and honey consumption was considered to be sinful; interesting that here Buddhism and veganism meet. So modern beekeeping in Bhutan isn't older than perhaps 40 years. But there has been a traditional method, which is less productive as a hive only produces a third of the honey, which a hive achieves under modern beekeeping. As the population only measures 727,145 with a density of 19.3/sq km, Bhutan doesn't have to make quick decisions, especially not when it comes to beekeeping.
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://www.bee-careful.com/de/initiative/auf-gefaehrlicher-mission-honigjaeger-nepal/
[2] https://althochdeutsch.fandom.com/de/wiki/Lorscher_Bienensegen
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_a_Swarm_of_Bees more text is found at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charm_wi%C3%BE_ymbe
[4] https://bhutanhoney.org/ „Since 1990s, we focus on providing everyone the access to premium health product. All of our honey product is naturally harvested and is a true testament of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness.“
[5] The review is available as PDF: http://journal.bee.or.kr/xml/33435/33435.pdf
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