When the weather starts to get cold, many workers in the mountains of Ha Tinh come back to the forest edge to hunt for domesticated humming bees and raise honey.

When the weather turns cold, the humming bees begin their journey to find a new home. The healthiest bees in the colony, the so-called “porcelain” bees, have a so-called “visitor bee” roaming around and often find prefabricated holes in electric poles or natural holes in tree trunks to find shelter. for the herd. 

These days, along the roads in the mountainous district of Huong Khe, Ha Tinh, it is easy to see bee hunters (Photo: Xuan Sinh).

At 7 am, Mr. Le Huu Thang (65 years old, in Huong Xuan commune, Huong Khe district, Ha Tinh province), who has more than 15 years of working as a flycatcher, started his journey, moving about 5km into the forest edge areas. of Huong Lam commune (Huong Khe district) to hunt this animal.

The equipment for catching bees is quite simple, only a few chang (bait pipes), and a net cloth racket. Chang bee is made of wooden trunks, about 60-80cm long, hollowed out and sealed with wooden lids at both ends. There are a few holes on the bee chang for the bees to come in and out.

Mr. Le Huu Thang patiently waited for porcelain bees to visit his bait pipe (Photo: Xuan Sinh).

“The bee is quite meticulous, in order to attract and catch the bait, the bait tube must be correct. The bait tube is the most important thing, deciding whether the porcelain bee chooses to come to the nest or not. A bait tube chosen for hunting must be The old pipe, which means that it was used for beekeeping, is clean,” Thang said.

When they reached the edge of the forest, the workers began to find a place to place the bait pipe, usually hanging at the base of a tree, or a high mound. These are easy locations to attract porcelain bees.

“When hanging the bait tube, if the porcelain bee finds it, it will fly over. The bee will fly back and forth, observe for a while and then make a decision. As long as the porcelain bee visits the bait tube that it likes the hive, it is considered as good as if the bee was able to visit the bait tube that it liked the hive. finished, only a few minutes later it flew out and then “calling” the whole swarm to go back into the nest, and if the porcelain bee didn’t like the bait tube, it would fly away and never come back, “said Mr. Thang.

The worker uses a racket to catch porcelain bees to put them into the bait pipe (Photo: Xuan Sinh).

According to the bee hunters here, the job looks simple but requires patience, sometimes to catch a hive, it takes 2-3 days. In addition, this also requires workers to have experience, which area, in which season the bees move to find another location to build a nest, to be able to hunt.

According to Mr. Thang, some people hunt bees to raise honey, others sell them for money. The selling price depends on the number of bees, but ranges from 400 thousand to 1 million VND/swarm.

After more than an hour, a bait pipe of Mr. Thang had a porcelain bee to “find out”. Looks like the porcelain bee liked this bait tube. After a few minutes of probing, the bee flew away, and then many more bees continued to fly, the swarm of bees grew larger and larger.

“Some people catch 2-3 beehives a day, but some people return empty-handed. There are cases where porcelain bees have chosen a bait pipe to make a shelter for the whole colony, but a few days later they decided to fly to make a nest. “, Mr. Thang said with a smile.

After being selected by the porcelain bees, the bees began to fly to Mr. Thang’s bait pipe day by day (Photo: Xuan Sinh).

And Mr. Phan Sy Nghia (60 years old, residing in Huong Lam commune, Huong Khe district) shared that for “chic” porcelain bees that refused to fly into the bait pipe, the hunter had to take action. When detecting a porcelain bee, the hunter will use a racket to catch it in the bait pipe, hold it for 2-3 minutes and then release it.

“I locked the porcelain bee in the bait tube for a few minutes for it to observe and check. Then I released it, if it liked the bait tube, it would fly back and pull the whole colony back,” Mr. Nghia said.

Like other workers, Mr. Nghia hunts bees both to raise honey and to sell. On average, each season, he hunts about 15-20 beehives.

“This job, if you’re lucky, sometimes you can earn a million dong a day, but sometimes you don’t. In general, the job is quite light but the income is quite good compared to many other occupations but it is time-consuming. service, only a few months a year,” Nghia said.