Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine August 2016 | Page 75

Explore | Flavours

© hlphoto / Shutterstock

There’s gold in the hills
that overlook the tiny village
of Adu on the Indonesian island
of Sumbawa. However, for local
resident Pak Abidin, it’s not
the heavy metal kind he’s
been collecting for over two
decades, but instead something
arguably much more precious:
wild forest honey.
I’ve bought honey at nearby Lakey Beach
on many occasions before, but this time
I’ve enlisted the help of Pak Abidin, Ibrahim
and Sa’ban – three local legends who make
their living harvesting wild honey (madu) –
to take me to the source.
We leave before sunrise to beat the heat,
and as we meander through tranquil green
rice fields and ochre-hued scrub, my guides
point out the first step in a magical process.
Asian honey bees (Apis dorsata, known in
Bahasa as tawon) buzz industriously around
the brilliant purple pamu and furry brown
kumbang flowers, collecting pollen to
transport back to the hive (sarang lebah)
many kilometres away up in the forest.
We start ascending to a spot where Abidin
reckons we’ll have a good chance of finding
a hive, and after a few very hot kilometres
scrambling and hacking our way through the
undergrowth, we emerge at a ridgeline where
we spot a huge beehive hanging off a bough
around 10m up in the canopy. According to
Abidin, you’ll only find hives in places that
are exposed directly to either the morning
or afternoon sun, hence why you won’t see
any lower down. It is triangular in shape
and roughly the size of a beanbag, and I’m
immediately struck by the question: how on

Hives are always high up in the canopy
as they need direct sunlight in the morning
or evening.
Abidin will often spend up to a week
camping in the forest collecting honey.
A worker bee can visit up to 100 flowers
during a collection trip.

As we meander through tranquil
green rice fields and ochre-hued
scrub, my guides point out the
first step in a magical process.

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