The Honey Hunt

As we were clearing land for our new compound back when we first arrived and were trying to get things set up, some of our workers were attacked by bees as they were clearing brush from an area by a tree. We got it cleared ok, but then when we went to start getting the storage and office built, the workers were attacked again. Don’t worry, no one even got stung then, but they were not willing to go back to work in that area because the bees starting coming out. So, our staff were talking about burning the bees out of the trees while some of them were also talking about there being honey in the bees hive. I became interested in this information and found out that a couple of our guys had harvested honey from bee hives before. After some convincing of the others, Elly and I talked the others into getting the honey that night before burning the bees out.

We went late in the evening, just before dark and built a fire under the hole the bees entered from. After smoking the tree for probably 15 or 20 minutes, we undertook the operation. The hole was not big enough to fit an adult hand, but rather than try to get a few six year olds to stick their hands in the bee hive, we took an axe to the tree. I was eager to do this, and took quite a few hacks before the bees started coming out. That was when we began really smoking them out. We lit some dry grass just outside the hole and blew the smoke in to keep the bees from coming out. Then, back at it with the axe. After a while, the hole was increasing, but a couple bees came out, and one was right by my ear. I dropped the axe and started waving all around at my head only to realize the bee had gotten stuck in my hair (Mullets are necessary when performing tasks like this). At this, I stopped franticly waving my arms about my head and simply squeezed the bee and my hair together in my hands to kill the bee before going back to hacking at the tree.

After a few minutes work, the hole was big enough to fit a hand in, so Elly took some grasses and applied the same smoking technique, blowing the smoke directly into the hole. Then, he just stuck his hand in the tree and started pulling out handfuls of honeycomb. It was awesome! Seeing that apparently the bees weren’t troubling him, I jumped at my chance to get some honey and did the same. It was an exciting feeling. You just blow in some smoke and pull out honeycomb. Sure, there were some bees still around, and many were on the honeycomb we pulled out, but I only got stung once. Several of the other guys also tried, including one of our Sudanese staff who is probably 6’3” and 220lbs. He is actually really gentle, sweet, humble, and an incredible guy, but he was initially afraid of the bees. He also got stung once, and our total was three stings for the night, but we all had a good time and talked about it for the next week (I am still talking about it several months later). The honey was so sweet, and it was made all the sweeter knowing that we had pulled it out of the tree ourselves. One of the more fun times I’ve had in my year here in Sudan.