Tribespeople hunt honey for a living in Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary

The Honey eco development panels, under the WWS collected 3,685 kg of wild honey from April 10 to June 30 this year

A tribal worker packing wild honey at a processing unit of the Honey Eco development committee under the Wayanad Wildlife sanctuary at Tholpetty.

At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic cast a cloud over the lives of thousands of daily workers, honey hunting is the mainstay for the tribespeople inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) .

The massive blooming of wild flora after the summer showers this year has helped to provide plenty of honey to the hunters.

The Honey Eco Development Committees (HEDC) at Muthanga and Tholpetty, under the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS), alone collected 3,685 kg of wild honey from April 10 to June 30 this year as against the 575 kg collected during the entire season last year.

The major reason for the sharp decline in the honey procurement last year was the spread of the pandemic, says S. Narendra Babu, warden, Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. Many a time the tribal people go in search of honey in the sanctuary and the adjacent tiger reserves in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu States.

However this season they collected honey mainly from the sanctuary itself, Mr. Narendra Babu added.

The tribal members of the Sulthan Bathery Scheduled Tribe cooperative society at Kallur, a major wild honey procuring outlet in the State, procured a huge quantity of honey this season than the previous year.

“We have procured 15,000 kg of honey so far as against 700 kg of honey last year,” said O.A. Ramakrishnan, president of the society. The society had procured 30,000 kg of honey in 2018-19.

At the advent of every summer, tribespeople, chiefly the Kattunayakka (Thaen Kuruma) tribe, will start preparing for their treasure hunt deep in the forests.

Four types of honeybees are found in the region, which include puttuthen (Apis cerana), kolthen or kombuthen (Api florea), malanthen (Apis dorsata), and cheruthen (Trigona or sting-less bee).

The tribal people get a major share of honey from the first two categories. Apis florea, also called dwarf honeybee, and Apis dorsata make hives every year on the same tree, which the tribal people call honey tree. The kombuthen harvest lasts till July end but the puttuthen harvest will continue till the end of September.

The EDCs collect the honey at ₹400 a kg from the tribesmen and sells it at ₹650 a kg, after filtering it, under the brand name ‘Wild Gold’ through four sales counters of the Forest Department.