Records & People

Nepal's Cliff Honey Hunters Risk Their Lives for a Honey That Can Get You High — and the Bees Are Vanishing

High in the cliffs of Lamjung, Gurung hunters climb hand-woven rope ladders for the world's largest honeybee's harvest — a tradition now disappearing…

By Laxman Rawal · Aug 10, 2026

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The world's largest honeybee builds its hive up to 14,000 feet up a bare Himalayan cliff face, and the only way to reach the honeycomb is a rope ladder woven by hand from bamboo and jungle vine. Twice a year, men from Nepal's Gurung community climb it anyway…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

What this means for trekkers

Nobody hands a visiting trekker a rope ladder, and an operator offering to let a foreigner ‘try honey hunting’ should be treated as a red flag rather than a selling point — this is a Gurung livelihood, and a genuinely dangerous one, not a tourist activity…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

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