For generations, the highlanders of Nepal’s Lamjung district in the foothills of the Himalayas have clung to cliffs and clouds, chasing wild bees for drops of honey as red as the rhododendron blooms that feed them. The ancient ritual still endures, but barely. The hives that once draped the rock faces like golden veils have thinned to scattered shadows, and the wildflower trees that sustained the bees are vanishing one slope at a time.

“I have been going on honey hunting since childhood,” said 54-year-old Suk Bahadur Gurung of Dordi Rural Municipality. “It is very different now. There were steep cliffs that were quite scary, but there are not many cliffs since the area was connected with the road.” He pointed toward a cliff that once stood 100 meters high. “When we were young, it was a hundred meters tall, now it is barely 50 since the road construction.”

As Nepal’s rush for hydropower and roads carves deeper into its hills, locals say the delicate ecosystems that once cradled the Himalayan giant bees are being drowned out by the roar of excavators and dynamite. The cliffs still stand, but quieter, emptier, as the bees retreat and a way of life slips closer to memory.

Honey hunting is an ancient tradition deeply rooted in the lives of the Gurung and Magar people of western Nepal and the Rai community of eastern Nepal. It involves climbing steep cliffs to collect wild honey made by the giant Himalayan honeybee. This honey is highly valued for its medicinal and hallucinogenic properties, making it a rare and expensive product.

These bees build large hives on southwest-facing cliffs more than 2,000 meters above sea level. The Gurung and Magar communities in districts like Lamjung, Kaski, and Myagdi have practiced this skill for centuries. In eastern Nepal, the Kulung Rai of the Solukhumbu district continue this tradition, using handmade rope ladders and bamboo poles to reach the hives and knock pieces of honeycomb into baskets while hanging hundreds of feet above the ground.

“Earlier we would find wild bees in abundance around the village, but they are slowly disappearing,” Gurung said. “The hydropower came for development, but it created a noisy environment. Once those projects started, we noticed changes in the behavior of wild bees. Some years there were many, some years very few.”

According to the Independent Power Producers’ Association Nepal (IPPAN), Nepal’s installed power generation capacity stands at 3,179 MW, with 78.5 percent produced by the private sector.

Currently, 292 hydro and solar projects (2,819 MW) are operational or under construction, 123 projects (3,649 MW) await survey licenses, 130 projects (9,008 MW) hold survey licenses, and 101 projects (10,726 MW) are applying for construction permits.

Many lie in the same zones where wild bees once built their hives. In Lamjung alone, two small dams along the Chhyangdi stream, the Upper and Lower Chhyangdi projects, generate six megawatts combined. But villagers say the altered water flow, forest clearance for transmission lines, and constant rock blasting have disturbed entire microclimates.

“When they diverted the stream, the cliffs dried out,” Gurung recalled. “The rhododendron forests that fed the bees are gone, cut down for roads and power lines.” A decade ago, Dordi harvested thousands of liters of wild honey each year. “Last year we got about 80. This season, just 50,” he said.

The Himalayan giant bee, the world’s largest honeybee, prefers overhanging cliffs near freshwater sources and flowering trees, especially rhododendrons. Both are under pressure from deforestation and wildfire. Nepal recorded more than 4,500 wildfires in 2024, nearly twice as many as the year before, wiping out entire slopes of rhododendron forests that once nourished the bees.

In addition, tourism has become another factor disturbing the wild honeybees. The growing number of trekkers and tourists has increased human activity in these areas, further disrupting the bees and their natural habitats.

According to a study by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, bee nesting sites in Kaski district declined from nine in 1986 to just five today, with nearly two thirds of colonies lost.

But the bees’ decline is not the only threat. The tradition of honey hunting itself is fading. “There is less inclination among young people to be honey hunters,” Gurung said. “I have two sons and two daughters. They don’t go on honey hunting expeditions anymore. The work is risky, and the yield is not worth the risk.”

Honey hunting demands courage. Men climb up to 100-meter cliffs on bamboo ladders, battling swarms of bees and swirling smoke to collect mad honey, known for its reddish hue and hallucinogenic effects. There are two honey harvesting seasons, one around Baisakh (April–May) and another in Kartik (October–November).

“It’s hard to sustain oneself with honey hunting,” Gurung said. “People prefer other jobs or go abroad for work. We don’t see that many expeditions these days.”

Despite the decline, Nepal’s wild honey remains a coveted product abroad. A mere 100-gram jar of “Himalayan mad honey” fetch up to $50 online, with exporters in Kathmandu shipping thousands of liters annually to the United States, Japan, and Europe.

“To be honest, honey hunting was never a lucrative job,” Gurung admitted. “In the old days, people wouldn’t even consume mad honey because of its toxicity. The wax was more valuable since traders came to buy it. Now, even that is replaced by synthetic wax.”

Today, the same honey that once carried little value fetches up to 4,000 rupees per liter right at the source, a small but welcome source of income. “Mad honey brings more return compared to old days,” Gurung said, though he quickly added that it cannot replace what the community has lost.

Experts warn that the destruction of cliff ecosystems, caused by hydropower, forest fires, and unplanned roads, is a dual loss, both environmental and cultural. Once a cliff is disturbed, it rarely recovers, and with it disappears an entire way of life built around balance with nature.

In the highlands of Dordi rural municipality, the near empty cliffs stand as a reminder of that loss. “The cliffs fed us, taught us patience, and gave us stories,” Gurung said quietly. “Now the rocks are empty. Our cliffs are dying, and so is our culture.”