Honey Hunters of the Nilgiri Hills

Several tribal groups in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu harvest the honey produced by Apis dorsata, the Giant Rock Bee. The bee makes its hives under overhanging rocks in virtually inaccessible sites, and climbing up to collect the honey is truly an amazing acrobatic feat.  Click here for a marvelous video of this activity. 

The Kurumba people make simple but wonderfully detailed paintings about honey hunting. The two pieces shown here were done by Balasubramani and Krishna of the Ajile Bottu painting collective.