Nepal's Gurung Honey Hunters Scale Cliffs for the World's Largest Bee and Its 'Mad Honey'

Culture & Heritage Gurung harvesters descend Himalayan cliffs on handmade ladders to cut combs from the world's largest honeybee, whose red 'mad honey' is prized as… By Laxman Rawal · Aug 25, 2026 Read the full story

High in the middle hills of Nepal, twice a year, a small group of villagers do something that looks impossible. They light smoking fires at the foot of a sheer cliff, climb to the top, and lower a long ladder woven from rope and bamboo over the edge. Then one… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

The bee that builds on cliffs

The honey comes from Apis laboriosa , the Himalayan giant honey bee, which is the world's largest honey bee — single adults can measure up to 3.0 cm (1.2 in) long. It is found across the mountains of Nepal, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and China's… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

How the harvest works

The method is disarmingly simple and genuinely dangerous. Hunters build smoky fires below the nests to drive the bees off the comb, then work from above, anchoring a handmade rope-and-bamboo ladder at the clifftop and letting it fall down the rock face. A… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

The "mad honey" and why it matters

Part of the harvest is ordinary honey. But some of it is the famous red "mad honey," prized for its purported medicinal value and intoxicating qualities. Those effects come from grayanotoxin, a natural compound the bees pick up in the nectar of white… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

A tradition under pressure

For all its fame, cliff honey hunting is fragile. Community members and researchers point to a familiar set of pressures: the hunters are ageing and fewer young people are learning the skill; the bees and their high-cliff nests are sensitive to changes in… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

Where it sits on the trekking map

The Gurung heartland is the middle-hill country of the Annapurna foothills — the same green ridges, terraced fields and stone villages that trekkers pass through on the classic Annapurna walks. You are extremely unlikely to stumble onto a live harvest, and… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

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