Bees Farming Sabah

Wild Honey is considered alternative medicine in certain societies and they believed, it has 1001 cures or corrective medicinal values. For instance it can improve certain "thing" in man if it is taken regularly mixed with raw eggs and ginger. Which to some is preferable than taking "Tongkat Ali" which is so bitter tasting, it is amazing how any man can take that thing on a daily basis to improve something. But there are few things you might like to know before you go crashing into the wild, to get one.

Recently I was invited to visit The Sabah Bee for Honey project near Kudat operated by the Rural Development Corporation. This is one of their programs to help the hardcore poor. The federal government allocation for Sabah Bee Project is about RM13 millions.

The best thing about bee keeping is that it can be carried out on a part time basis and the participant can do other things as well. From the state government statistic, Sabah produced 20 tonnes of honey last year. The market rates for honey are around the region of RM6 per kilogram depends on quality. That’s a very good rates but honey cant be produce in mass like oil palm.

There's a collective bee farming in a village called Kampong Gombizou in Matunggung, a subdistrict in Kudat, about 2 hours drive from Kota Kinabalu. You pay RM3 for entrance fee and someone will take you to its hive yard. That person, usually armed with a smoke generating canister as seen in the photo, will take you.

Do stay close to her as both of you approach a hive. She usually picks the hive that has a swirling clouds of agitated bees, buzzing it. No fear. Normally bees don't sting if you don't upset them, but are known to buzz and hover/land on tourist whose perfume has pheromone in it. You might like to check your perfume's chemical content before you go traipsing into a bee farm. You wouldn't want to compete with the real Queen Bee, which is the other female in the vicinity, wearing that pheromone thing.

At the hive, she takes out and smoke a frame of honeycomb as in the photo. She does this to show you where the honey is and how the honeycomb looks like. Her assistant then hands her a knife, for her to cut a small bitesize honeycombs for you to try.

Honey dripping from its honeycomb is light golden in color and its sweetness is gentle and mellow with a fragrance or bouquet, suggesting warm summer morning.