Bengaluru skyscraper honeycombs make sweet business for Nepalis

Bengaluru’s landscape is changing. The green cover in the city is depleting rapidly and the cement structures are blooming at a faster pace. The result is we have been losing precious fauna and flora.

As part of this environmental change, you may have noticed another phenomenon. Bees are changing their ways and their homes. While earlier honeycombs were a common sight on tall trees, now they have shifted their address to buildings and tall apartment complexes. That's what you get for cutting trees in Bengaluru. 

There is no dearth of tall buildings in Bengaluru, however, like pigeons are considered a menace, similarly honeycombs blocking windows or hanging from balconies are a threat to the people living there.

But to one group of people, this means business. Honey collectors from Nepal are making a nice business out of this. These bee hunters work in coordination with the BBMP forest cell and are the most preferred honey collectors as they don't kill the bees; instead they relocate beehives by capturing the queen bee and releasing the bees into the forest area.

Suraj Singh,who belongs to the Gurung tribe in Nepal  has been collecting honey from apartments, trees and government buildings in Bengaluru from the last two decades.  

He tells us why they don’t kill the bees. “We are originally from Nepal and our ancestors believed that killing the bees would bring a  curse upon them and so, we add little smoke near the hive. The bees irritated by the smoke start forming a swarm. It is at that time we cut the honeycomb using bamboo," said Suraj and added, the team safely releases the honey bees along with the trapped queen bee into thick bushes and parks.

"As these community members are considered to be safe honey extractors, all the honeycomb complaints from tall buildings are routed to them. They work hard and risk their life by climbing tall buildings, still some apartments do not consider their work and sometime chase them after their work is done," explains Sharath Babu, BBMP Wildlife Warden.

The honey hunters say that March and April will be the peak months for their collection activities.  Its the flowering season and that is when most honey bees are said to thrive.

• Nepali bee hunters
• bee collection
• Bengaluru skyscrapers
• trees cut in Bengaluru
• honeycombs
• honey bees