It was your average Friday night: I was sitting on the kitchen floor with Anjana and the other four volunteers, tearing apart dried greens (gundruk) to store in containers. It was around 8:00pm and I was about ready to call it a night. We were just packing the last container when Tara burst into the kitchen and announced that tonight we would harvest the wild honey. We were taken by surprise. We knew that Tara had been planning to collect honey from the huge hive hanging off the side of the house, but we thought it was happening the next night. We asked why the plan had changed. Tara simply said that Saturday night was a bad time to collect honey. The right time was now.

Upon Tara’s instructions, we got fully clad in our honey hunting attire: sneakers, long pants, jackets, scarves, and optional gloves & glasses. Tara told us that one or two bee stings was alright, even healthy. But three stings? “Maybe we go to hospital,” had been his exact words. That was all we needed to hear. We dressed for a blizzard.

All the lights in the house were shut off so they wouldn’t attract the bees. We made our way by flashlight to the second floor balcony. The five of us volunteers watched transfixed as Tara, Anjana, and Anjana’s father (visiting from a neighboring village) prepared to collect the honey, wearing their everyday clothes.

Anjana’s father climbed up onto a ladder carrying an old t-shirt that had been turned into a torch. He held up the smoking rag to the hive and the blizzard began. But it wasn’t snow. Ohhh, no. Like something straight out of a thriller movie, it was a blizzard of bees. The rest of the volunteers and I stayed in a tight pack, our scarves tightly wrapped around our faces. I could feel the bees hitting my jacket and the occasional bee bouncing off my face. I pulled my scarf up over my face. As for the honey harvesters, they were unfazed.

Once the most of the bees had fled, they cut down the hive, making sure to leave the base so the bees could rebuild. The hive was gently placed in a large metal bowl and quickly brought downstairs before too many bees had the opportunity to return. Safely in the yard, Anjana set to work cleaning the hive. She nimbly plucked off bees with her bare hands and tossed them into the garden. We stood nearby bundled in several layers of clothes gawking at her apparent disregard of the bees, sedated, but still very much alive.

Once the hive was cleaned, we all gathered in the kitchen to help with the only part we knew how… Eating the honeycomb! We took turns using the waxy honeycomb to soak up the excess honey from the bottom of metal bowl. I popped some honeycomb in my mouth and the honey ran onto my tongue. WOW. It was unbeelieveable (sorry, I couldn’t resist)! After I’d sucked the honey, I spit out the wax which would later be used as a fire starter. Upon Tara’s recommendation, I also tired a piece of honeycomb with bee larva inside. He said it was good to eat. I think he meant it was safe to eat, because it was definitely not tasty. Maybe I would’ve enjoyed it more if I hadn’t known I was eating bee larva. Whatever the case, I now have a new strange food story to tell!

After we’d finished our “work,” Anjana cut out the center of the hive which was saturated with honey, yet contained no larva. It was pure gold. She squeezed the honey into a bowl before separating it into jars. It was enough honey to fill three and a half small jars. Two jars would be given to family and the other jar and a half would be kept as a remedy for when people suffered from colds.

By the time the honey harvest and celebration ended, it was well past 10:00pm. There were many sticky dishes and the upstairs balcony was the scene of a massacre with dozens of bee corpses scattered across the floor. However, the cleaning could wait til the next day. It had been an exciting night and we had managed to escape the wrath of the bees. Nevertheless, that night we all slept with our doors shut tightly and our blankets pulled over our heads. Honey bees are notorious for revenge.