KOHAT: The season of collecting honeybee hives in the Bazid Khel forest has been completed, and now the commodity is available in the market, but at Rs1,500 higher price than last year. The honey of Bazid Khel forest is famous for its purity and taste.

This season, thousands of hives have been harvested from the trees by honey collectors as well as the forest department officials in Bazid Khel and Shakardarra.

Noman Shah of Barh, who runs a honey shop in the fruit and vegetable market in the main Kohat bazaar, collects the commodity from September to November each year. He told Dawn that majority of the buyers did not trust the sellers and preferred to buy the honey in the shape of hives.

The hive collection is the main source of income for the people along with wheat cultivation in villages like Bazid Khel, he said.

Sometimes, getting a beehive becomes very difficult and often people end up having just one after a daylong struggle.

“Sellers like me who are a few in the Kohat Bazaar have bottled the rest of the honey from hives and will sell it till March next when bees will build new hives. Some people sell the hives by injecting sugar in them,” said Noman Shah. However, he said the people who needed the honey for making medicines, especially for curing heart diseases, and eating purposes, very well knew the difference between artificial and original honey. “They buy it from selected shops or ask the villagers of Bazid Khel to bring them the product intact in hives,” he said, adding the hives brought by the officials of the forest department were also original.

Noman said that this year the price of one kilogramme of honey of small bees had jumped to Rs3,500 from Rs2,000 in the same season last year. Similarly, the honey of bigger bees was being sold for Rs1,500 per kilogramme which was cheaper because of its rather harsh taste and non-consumption in medicines.

The honey seller argued that the honey produced in farm was available at Rs1,200 which had a poor market because the professional beekeepers put bags of sugar close to the hand-made hives which was eaten and converted into honey by the bees.

Mr Shakoor, who is a popular honey seller in the chicken market which is famous for wide variety of honey obtained from berries, said he had got machines for skimming the honey out of bees. He said he stored thousands of bottles of honey every year.

He, however, said the honey produced in March was not of so good quality, adding: “I wait for the month of September and pay in advance to the villagers to bring him the hive.”

Published in Dawn November 30th, 2016