Honey Hunting

Syange is quite popular for its honey and it's no ordinary honey but more on that later. Honey hunting has been practiced by the Gurungs in the vicinity of the Syange waterfall since ancient times and if you are lucky enough you will be able to watch these people in action. These honey hunters still use primitive and modest tools such as handmade rope ladders made from bamboo and hemp, long sticks known as 'tangos' and handmade baskets for collecting the honeycombs. The honey hunters use smoke to clear away the bees from their beehives (from a distance, the black colored beehives are the ones that have bees and honey in them). Once the beehives are empty they get on with their work of breaking the hives and chunks of honeycombs fall into the basket which is carefully placed under the hive while the hunters dangle in mid-air with the help of handmade ropes. After collecting the beehives in their baskets they squeeze the beehive and extract the honey with their bare hands. Location of beehives at heights of above 200 feet doesn't make the job of these hunters easy. Also, if you decide to taste the local honey then let us warn you before hand that this honey can be quite intoxicating. The effects of consuming a few spoonful of this highly potent honey can be felt for hours or even days. Loss of motor coordination and dizziness are just some of the effects that the wild honey gives. The honey collected at higher altitudes is known as spring or red honey. The intoxicating effect decreases over storage but not completely. You have been warned! If you really wish to try it out then consider consuming only a spoonful unless you want to lie down helplessly for hours. You can even search for videos on youtube that show the effect of wild honey. We are pretty sure after watching some videos your appetite for the red honey will decrease significantly. "Hunting mad honey" (skip to 20:00) is one documentary you should check out to see the effect of the honey.