How bees are buzzing new life into forests and farming

A living tradition in West Timor brings sweet rewards for forests and the community

The unusual sight of a honey harvester working by day. The honeycombs are usually harvested at night, using fire to drive away the giant honey bees (Apis dorsata). Photo by Nanang Sujana / CIFOR-ICRAF

Andréa Imbert

Monica Evans

Tuesday, 20 May 2025

“If we cut down all the trees, we will die.”

Each year, as the dry season settles over the remote highlands of West Timor, the Olian-Fobia community embarks on the custodians’ trails of the Mount Mutis Nature Reserve. The pilgrimage is a cultural ritual and vital practice intertwining tradition, ecology, and economy. Their destination: the towering Eucalyptus alba trees, home to the giant honey bee, Apis dorsata. Here, they engage in the sacred harvest of wild honey—a practice that sustains their community and the forest they revere.

The honey harvest is deeply rooted in Indigenous customs, involving rituals that honour ancestral spirits and ensure social harmony. Climbers ascend trees up to 80 meters high under the cover of night, serenaded by chants that seek the bees’ permission to collect their honey. This respectful approach reflects a profound understanding of the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.

Beyond its cultural significance, this tradition has tangible economic benefits. Mount Mutis honey provides supplementary income for the Olin-Fobia people, with annual harvests reaching up to 30 tons. The community has developed sustainable branding and marketing strategies, ensuring their honey reaches broader markets while preserving ecological practices.

An ancient tradition

For the Olin-Fobia community, harvesting wild honey is sacred business that involves a combination of Indigenous and religious rituals.

The traditional custodians live a two-day journey from the forest where they collect the honey. When the blossoms of the Eucalyptus alba appear, preparations begin for a two-to three-week camp. Food and shelter must be prepared for the journey, and personal conflicts are expected to be resolved before departure, ensuring social harmony among the community.

Isak Fobia, leader of the Olin-Fobia community. He is responsible for guiding the honey harvesting ceremony from the beginning to the end, and for dividing the harvest among the community. Photo by Nanang Sujana / CIFOR-ICRAF

At nightfall, a group of people head out to the harvest location. Led by the amaf, or community leader, the group includes individuals with the technical and spiritual knowledge to safely collect the wild honey. The dangerous task involves climbing to branches up to 80 meters above the ground, where hives hang from the towering trees. An older tree can play host to as many as 120 hives.

A sustainable product

There is usually enough honey from the harvest for the community to use for their own purposes and to sell outside the area. As much as 30 tons of wild honey is produced and harvested in Mount Mutis annually, accounting for 25 percent of total production in the province of East Nusa Tenggara.

The sale of honey brings additional income for the whole community. Since it doesn’t involve cutting down trees, the harvest has a low impact on the protected Mount Mutis Nature Reserve. And because the continued production of honey relies on the health of the entire ecosystem, there is an additional incentive for the community to preserve it for generations to come.

A single tree can host more than 100 hives. Photo by Nanang Sujana / CIFOR-ICRAF Nanang Sujana/CIFOR

The whole community joins the journey to the harvest location, and the rewards are shared equally among them. Photo by Nanang Sujana / CIFOR-ICRAF

Community member Yohanes Palo waits for the harvest. Photo by Nanang Sujana / CIFOR-ICRAF

Standing by a Eucalyptus alba, or white gum tree. the tree's blossoms are the source of Mount Mutis wild honey. Photo by Nanang Sujana / CIFOR-ICRAF

At other times of the year, nearby communities collect honey made from the blossoms of the Eucalyptus urophylla, known locally as the ampupu tree. However, the Eucalyptus alba honey harvest is reserved for the Olin-Fobia community—a tradition deeply respected by others in the Mutis-Timau landscape. By honouring these long-standing agreements, communities aren’t just following policy—they’re keeping a promise to the land and one another, showing how deep-rooted traditions can quietly strengthen national efforts to protect forests.

Watch also Song for forest bees

Bees as a bridge: From trees to tables

Pollinators fertilize more than 75% of global food crops. But their populations are dwindling—from pesticide use, monoculture farming, deforestation, and climate change. The loss is more than ecological—it’s economic and nutritional.

By integrating trees and crops, agroforestry is making space for pollinators to thrive. In Burkina Faso, farmers are learning to manage stingless and honey bees, select native flowering species and incorporate hives into timber plots and home gardens. The result is a landscape that works harder and heals faster.

Photo by Ollivier Girard / CIFOR-ICRAF

Johanny Sawadogo, Head of the Provincial Forest Service, training members of Yalka village in beekeeping. It is a state program aimed at diversifying sources of income for farmers, Yalka village, Burkina Faso. Photo by Ollivier Girard / CIFOR-ICRAF

The integration of beekeeping into agroforestry systems is delivering wide-ranging benefits. In many communities, honey production has opened up new streams of income, boosting household financial stability and creating fresh opportunities for economic empowerment. Environmentally, the presence of bees supports the growth of flowering plants and trees, playing a quiet but vital role in local reforestation efforts. Community engagement has also deepened, as training programs foster knowledge exchange and strengthen social bonds.

The impacts of pollinator-friendly landscapes are striking: farmers are seeing crop yields rise by 15 to 30 percent in areas where bees are active. Households report earning up to 50 percent more through diversified farming systems. And as farmers plant more nectar-rich and multipurpose species, tree cover is steadily increasing—offering both ecological and economic resilience.

Across the world, from the forests of West Timor to the farms of West Africa, bees are quietly holding entire ecosystems together. They pollinate the crops we eat, the trees we depend on, and the plants that keep soil and climate in balance. And yet, they’re disappearing.

Communities like Olin-Fobia remind us that it doesn’t have to be this way. Their traditions show that it’s possible to live in step with nature—to care for the land while making a living from it. When bees are protected, forests flourish. And when forests thrive, so do we.

Copyright policy:
We want you to share Forests News content, which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This means you are free to redistribute our material for non-commercial purposes. All we ask is that you give Forests News appropriate credit and link to the original Forests News content, indicate if changes were made, and distribute your contributions under the same Creative Commons license. You must notify Forests News if you repost, reprint or reuse our materials by contacting forestsnews@cifor-icraf.org.