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by DIANA COHN
San Francisco, CA
first learned of the ancient honey
hunting rituals that take place in
the Malaysian rainforests from the
beautifully written book, The Forgotten
Pollinators co-authored by Steve Buchmann
and Gary Nabham. This book had a profound effect on my life and strengthened
my passionate interest in bees and beekeeping. It led to my producing a radio
documentary on the pollination crisis in
America for Pacifica radio’s national news
magazine, Democracy Now! The book also
led to what is certain to be a life-long
friendship with Dr. Steve Buchmann.
Many years…and many conversations later,
our common interests evolved into to a partnership resulting in the creation of a small
company, The Beeworks, based in Tucson,
Arizona. The company (of which Steve
is President) is dedicated to research on
pollination and to preserving indigenous
methods of beekeeping.
Steve and I also had another common interest—writing. While he
writes primarily for adults, I write
primarily for children. We decided
to cross-pollinate our interests
and embark on a collaborative
project—a children’s’ book on
the subject of the Malaysian
honey hunt. Using Steve’s notes
and journals I immersed myself
in the subject until we finished
the manuscript, The Bee Tree.
During the process of writing
the story, he pleaded with me to
take time off from my job and to
go to Malaysia to see for myself
what we had been writing about,
for he had made the journey to
witness this extraordinary event
several times. Finally, this past
February—with a finished manuscript in hand, it was the strategic time
to go.
Being interested in mythology and the
sacred place in which the bee is held in
many cultures I was especially interested
in the fact that the Malaysian honey hunt
could only be understood by going back in
time to an ancient story from the Hindu
text, the Rig Veda. This story would infuse
every aspect of what I would witness in the
July 2004
rainforest in the state of Kedah province,
in peninsular Malaysia.
One must first imagine a beautiful servant girl named Hitam Manis, living in a
Sultan’s Palace. When the Sultan’s son fell
in love with her, affectionately calling her
his ‘Sweet Dark One’, the Sultan ordered
his soldiers to chase her from his
kingdom—for it was forbidden for a sultan’s son, a prince, to marry a common servant girl. Hitam Manis fled the palace
along with her loyal handmaidens—the
other servant girls. As she ran, one of
the soldiers pierced Hitam Manis’ heart
with a metal spear.
She fell to the
ground but
did not
die.
Pak Teh, honey hunter, holding a
copy of the American Bee Journal.
Miraculously she and the other servant
girls were transformed into a swarm of
bees and flew deep into the rainforest.
Years later, while hunting in the rainforest with his companions, the sultan’s son
saw some large honey combs draping off a
Tualang tree. He climbed up the tree to harvest the honey and when ready, asked his
companions to send up a knife and a bucket
to collect the honey. But when his companions lowered the bucket down to the
ground, to their horror they saw their prince
all cut up in little pieces. A voice then
streamed down from the treetops: it was
Hitam Manis. Because she had been pierced
by a metal spear, she ruled, “one must
never, ever, use metal when gathering my
honey.” However, when Hitam Manis saw it
was the Prince she once loved, she shed a
shower of yellow tears to cover the bucket.
Then another miracle occurred: the Prince
was restored to his former whole self. And
from that day on, no metal has ever been
used to collect honey in the rainforest.
The honey hunters have adhered to this
rule for hundreds of years. This includes
Pak Teh, the eighty-year old leader of a
honey hunting clan who enters the rainforest every year to climb the Tualang trees.
These trees are known by their Latin name,
Koompassia excelsa, but to those of us
interested in the honey hunt, they are
known simply as, the bee trees. They are
the tallest trees in Asia, towering to heights
up to 240 feet. The honey hunters climb a
herringbone-shaped ladder attached to the
tree’s smooth trunk—to over 120 feet— to
where the first branches unfurl themselves
–and to where the bees build their colonies.
Here the honey hunters risk their lives to
harvest the liquid gold from the giant
combs, combs which can stretch 4-5 feet
wide. The combs are made by some of the
biggest and fiercest bees in the world, Apis
dorsata. Although everything said about
the migration of these bees is speculative,
many believe these migratory bees follow
the rubber tree refoliation in various parts
of the diperocarp rainforests. Honey has
been collected from these trees for close to
a thousand years. For the last 40 years, Pak
Teh has continued this tradition. Over the
last few years he has been transferring his
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The beautifully
worn leather
buckets or
palang that
have been used
since 1965.
Pak Teh holding the pisau, a
bone knife made from the
scapula of a cow used to
cut the honeycombs.
skills and his forest knowledge to the next
generation.
I booked my ticket to arrive in Malaysia
at the time of the new moon in February.
My mission? To meet the famous honey
hunter in his home in the small village of
Jitra and to journey to Pedu Lake to witness the honey hunt…to where one of the
5 Bee trees Pak Teh harvests looms into
the sky. This tree would take a prominent
place in the The Bee Tree. I also came to
meet with and work with Tucson-based
artist, Paul Mirocha, to lay out the art for
the story. As a children’s writer and as a
beekeeper with a deep love for all species
of honey bees, I was looking forward to
witnessing the honey hunt, as well as gathering information for an article for the
American Bee Journal. It just so happened
Our trip would not have been
possible without the expert
translation skills and
knowledge of Azhar.
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to turn out that this journal was a favorite of
our translator, Noor Azhar Zainal, whose
eyes lit up when he saw it. Seeing his smile
of recognition, I immediately gave him the
current issue I was carrying with me.
Azhar met us in Alor Setar, a small city
north of Kuala Lumpur. He would be our
guide into the world of the honey hunt and
into conversations with Pak Teh and the
other members of the honey hunting clan.
Azhar had studied the Apis dorsata and the
honey hunters under the guidance of
Professor Makhidzir Bin Mardan, a leading world entomologist, now the Vice
Chancellor of the Universiti Putra
Malaysia (UPM) located in Putra Jaya, a
small city adjacent to Kuala Lumpur.
Azhar took off time from his job as the
Senior Horticultural Assistant Officer for
the Taman Botani, a botanical garden and
education center also located in Putra Jaya,
in order to join us. For him it was a welcomed retreat and reunion with his old
friends—the honey hunters and the bees.
Everyone I would meet over the next
few days had a deep and passionate love of
bees. In the chapter, ‘Telling the Bees’ in
the beautifully written book The Voice of
the Infinite in the Small: Re-Visioning the
Insect-Human Connection by Joanne
Elizabeth Lauck, she references the strange
phenomenon of the “bee fever.” She
writes, “…the onset might be slow or fast,
but the end result is the same, you fall in
love with honey bees.”
For our translator Azhar, his catching of
the bee fever originates with his encounter
with Dr. Mardan, who enlisted his help in
his research on Apis dorsata and the honey
hunters. On the very first field trip they
took to examine some hives in the village
of Tanjung Kanang, Azhar was stung for
the first time. It was very painful, but he
said nothing, even as his arm continued to
swell. He listened to Professor Mardan
generously share his knowledge of what
they were observing. When he returned
home, he stayed home for 2 days feeling
quite ill. Next to his bed was the reading
material given to him only days before by
Dr. Mardan which included some of his
favorite books and articles on bees. Azhar
picked up one of the articles to read and it
was this passage referenced in the Holy
Qur’an (16:68-69)—that would profoundly
shift the direction of his life. ‘And your
Lord taught the bee to build its cells in hills,
on trees and in (man’s) habitations…there
issues from within their bodies a drink of
varying colors, wherein is healing for the
people. Verify in this a Sign for those who
give it thought.’
“Reading this passage in the holiest book
of Islam was enough for me to know I
needed to know more about the bees,”
Azhar told me, “and that this involvement
with the bees was connected to doing
something useful for mankind.” For the
next 16 years, with the bee fever strong, his
involvement with the bees continued, doing
research and observation under the direction of Professor Mardan with a primary
focus on the mating flights of Apis dorsata.
The next day in the early morning we
drive to Jitra, a small village outside Alor
Setar to meet Pak Teh. When we come
Pak Teh’s
110 year old
traditional
Malaysian
home on
stilts.
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Pak Teh with author.
upon his home—the beauty of the architecture takes my breath away. It is a 110 year
old traditional Malaysian hand
carved wooden house on stilts.
Intricate designs are carved into
the panels above the doorway
and around the open air windows. Pak Teh lives in the largest
rice producing state in Malaysia
and is lucky to own 10 acres of
paddies right near his home. His
home is a retreat from the hot
humid weather. After greeting
each other, we sit on the floor for
introductions. First and foremost,
I want him to know that I love
bees and I show him photos of
my beehives in California. Next,
I present him with signed copies
of my published books including
a copy of a working illustration
from The Bee Tree, the current story in
which he is one of the main characters.
Introductions are important—to explain
our presence and our coming all the way
across the world to meet him. My mission:
to get feedback on the manuscript and
make final changes in the text. For my
traveling partner from the east coast, Nikos
Valance, it is to produce a short video documentary on the honey hunt. More gifts
are exchanged. I bring him a yellow t-shirt
with a swarm of bees on it which he immediately puts on over his white t-shirt. Nikos
gives him a jar of organic honey from
upstate New York. Pak Teh then shows us
a photo of his family pointing out his four
married daughters, his 18 grandchildren
and his great-grandchildren.
He then takes a very special photo down
from the wall and puts it on the floor for
our review. It is his picture with the present
sultan, his Royal Highness Al-Sultan
Almu’Tasimu Billahi Muhibbuddin Tuanku
Alhaj Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah who
owns all the land in the state of Kedah and
rules over who will or will not get permission to harvest within his rainforests. Pak
Teh, like all the other honey hunters before
him, have asked the ruling Sultan this
question since the year 1516. Pak Teh
recently pleaded his case as he has done
every year since 1968 when the Sultan first
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granted him permission as a clan leader to
harvest honey in the forest preserves.
Pak Teh and the rest of the honey hunting
clan will store their honey in glass bottles
for both personal use and for sale. This
honey is precious to the honey hunters and
Tualang honey is sold at a higher price than
any other Asian honey. In exchange for
granting the privilege to conduct the hunt,
the Sultan’s bounty will come after the harvest, in the form of 20 to 30 kilos of
beeswax presented to him in blocks and tall
cylinder candles made from bamboo molds.
We continue to exchange gifts and stories over the next hour. Pak Teh signals us
to take a break — to proudly share with us
some of his harvested honey—the liquid
gold—which we happily scoop up with
bread—in the traditional way it is done in
this Malaysian home.
After tasting the honey, Nikos begins a
Pak Teh and his wife Mak Teh.
more formal video interview on the front
porch where the breeze continues to give
us respite from the close to 100 degree
weather as it circles through the wooden
house. It is through this conversation that
we learn more of Pak Teh’s story.
For Pak Teh, the bee fever struck when
he was 40 years old— when his 60 year
old uncle Tok Akub taught him about the
bee trees. Four years later after training
Pak Teh, Tok Akub introduced his nephew
to the Sultan. This introduction served as
the formal gesture of handing the leadership of the hunt to the next generation.
“Tok Akub taught me much about the forest.” Pak Teh tells us, “I wanted to show
my uncle my commitment to nature.
Although I was frightened to climb the tree
at first, my uncle’s example motivated me.
I was stung again and again and at times I
wanted to quit, but the moment I came in
contact with honey, I knew in my mind that
I would always go back up the tree.” Pak
Teh tells us how important it is to him to
involve young people in the hunt and that
it is his responsibility to share his knowledge openly with the youth. We would see
these younger honey hunters — his
nephews and grandsons —later that night.
“Teaching them how to be good to the forest and how to be good to the bees” Pak
Teh continues, “is an important way to
contribute to the overall well being of the
forest.” Pak Teh is a conservationist at
heart with the deepest love for nature. He
tells us he does not sleep well in months of
November and December until he gets the
first signs that the bees have safely
returned to the forest.
The interview is followed by a traditional
Malaysian meal cooked by Pak Teh’s wife,
Mak Teh. We sit and eat chicken, fish, rice,
green beans and okra, followed by fermented rice wrapped in banana leaves for dessert.
The meal is topped off with rich dark black
coffee—which Mak Teh has ground from
the trees growing in her yard. Mak Teh’s
meals are the most delicious of all that we
eat during our entire stay in Malaysia.
After finishing our coffee, Pak Teh, takes
us downstairs under his stilted home to
where the equipment is stored that will be
used for the honey hunt. We see the nylon
ropes ‘tali umbai’ that will be
used to create a pulley system
that will winch the equipment up
the tree, the beautifully worn
leather buckets or ‘palang’ that
have been used since 1965, the
torches, ‘kayu bintang’ made
from liana and other kinds of forest vines pounded and tied tightly
together, that when lit, will be
used to lure the bees from their
nests, and a bone knife, the
’pisau’ made from the scapula of
a cow that will be used later that
evening to cut the combs from the
tree. There is no metal anywhere.
A beautiful mosque sits right
behind Pak Teh’s home. As the
time for afternoon prayers beckons, Pak Teh, goes to bathe and to change
his clothes. He and Azhar and others pray
in Pak Teh’s living room. “If we pray
Pak Teh and
great-grandson Choc ho.
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together we feel more close,” Azhar says
when we get into the car for the next leg of
our journey—the hour and half long drive
to Pedu Lake. While we get settled at the
Desa Utara Pedu Lake Eco-resort (which is
conveniently located just a few miles from
the bee tree that will be harvested that
night), Pak Teh will organize his team to
get ready for the hunt. They will pack their
van with the equipment needed for
tonight’s hunt. In several hours we will
meet them in the rainforest.
Next month read about how the
“honey hunters” obtain honey from the
towering Tualong trees.
Acknowledgments:
The author would like to thank Steve
Buchmann and Paul Hawken for their comments on the manuscript. The author also
thanks Dr. Makhidzir Bin Mardan for
paving the way to make this trip possible,
Ahmad Abd. Razak (Mat) who helped us
get everywhere safely, Roslan for hosting us
at the Desa Utara Pedu Lake Resort, and a
final "terima kasih banyak banyak" (thank
you very much/a lot ) to Noor Azhar Zainal,
(Azhar) who was the best guide and translator we could have ever hoped for and to Pak
Teh, Mak Teh and the honey hunters who so
generously shared their lives with us.
Diana Cohn is a hobbyist beekeeper
and is a published author living in northern California. Her books include Dream
Carver, Si Se Puede! Yes We Can! Janitor
Strike in LA, and Mr.Goethe's Garden.
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