₹1,050.00 Original price was: ₹1,050.00.₹899.00Current price is: ₹899.00.
The high nutritional and medicinal values as well as the hidden efforts of Royal Bee Brothers’ honey hunters, who risk their lives while collecting the honey, make this raw honey absolutely exceptional, flavorful and delicious. This is one of the best forest honey harvested from the Saranda forest, a dense forest in the hilly region of West Singhbhum district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. This honey is particularly rare but with good reason, and the story behind it is quite extraordinary.
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Description
Honey harvested from the Saranda Forest, produced by wild honey bees, is a unique and valuable natural product. These bees build their hives high in the trees, far from human interference, resulting in honey that is exceptionally pure and rich in nutrients. The Saranda Forest, renowned for its biodiversity, provides a pristine environment where wildflowers and medicinal plants flourish, contributing to the distinct flavor and health benefits of this honey. This forest honey is often darker and more robust in flavor compared to commercial varieties, reflecting the diverse flora of the region.
Benefits
Honey harvested from the Saranda Forest, produced by wild honey bees, is a unique and valuable natural product. These bees build their hives high in the trees, far from human interference, resulting in honey that is exceptionally pure and rich in nutrients. The Saranda Forest, renowned for its biodiversity, provides a pristine environment where wildflowers and medicinal plants flourish, contributing to the distinct flavor and health benefits of this honey. This forest honey is often darker and more robust in flavor compared to commercial varieties, reflecting the diverse flora of the region.
Usage
Honey can be used as a natural sweetener in place of sugar to help reduce overall calorie intake. Starting the day with a warm glass of water mixed with honey and lemon can help boost metabolism and support weight loss efforts. Honey adds a natural sweetness and helps emulsify homemade salad dressings. Combine honey with olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and herbs to create a flavorful and healthy dressing for your salads. Honey can be used to sweeten teas, smoothies, and other beverages. Unlike refined sugar, honey provides additional nutrients and can help soothe the throat, making it a great addition to herbal teas. Replace sugar with honey in baking recipes for cakes, cookies, and breads. Honey adds moisture and a distinct flavor to baked goods. It can also be used in marinades and glazes for meats and vegetables, enhancing the taste and texture of dishes. Honey’s antibacterial and moisturizing properties make it an excellent ingredient for skin care. It can be applied directly to the skin as a mask or mixed with other natural ingredients like yogurt or oatmeal for a nourishing and soothing treatment. A spoonful of honey can help alleviate symptoms of coughs and colds. Its soothing effect can reduce throat irritation, and its antimicrobial properties can help fight infections. Mixing honey with warm water, lemon, and ginger can provide additional relief and support the immune system.
About Saranda Forest
The vicinity, the beautiful cliff and undulating terrain under the feet, the nose breathing fresh cool air, the energy of nature at its work, where darkness rules in the middle of the day, where the power of logic vanishes to differentiate between reality and imagination, when you lost in infinite in adoring the beauty of nature; then you must be in the in Saranda. This forest is home to the Ho & Birhor tribes. It accommodates endangered flying lizards, majestic wild elephants, more than 40 species of mammals, 162 species of birds, 9 species of amphibians and 33 species of reptiles. The Saranda forest, , Asia’s largest dense Sal Forest, known as land of 700 hills, is also enriched with trees such as Harin, Mahua, Kusum, Tilai, Mangoes, Jamun, Jackfruit, Piar and Gular etc.
Honey Origin
Once in a year, for a whole month, the wild honeybees come to gather the nectar from the flowers, to which they turn into honey, making it distinct, unique, tasteful and luscious from the other varieties of honey. This honey is produced by wild honeybees namely Apis Dorsata. These large indigenous honeybee species often nest high on cliffs or in high trees. Apis Dorsata is an economically important bee species due to the large quantities of honey that it can produce. It is one of the most dangerous animals of the Saranda jungles due to their threatening defensive behavior. The large body size of Apis Dorsata allows them to have a greater flight and foraging range than in comparison to other species of honeybees. The aggregations of these bees formed on the tallest trees or cliffs, introduce a major challenge to access. Furthermore, the natural distribution of these bees overlaps with that of tigers, which have been known to kill honey hunters.
Honey Harvesting Process
The pollution and pesticide free forest region of Saranda flourish with thousands of exotic floral species in April/May. It is known as the best honey harvesting season as the honeycombs are filled with honey in these months. Honey hunter team camps deep inside the forest at least 7-10 days in advance to start preparing for harvesting by identifying and marking the trees with honeycombs. Either ropes or makeshift ladders are used to reach the top of the trees or cliffs and small bundles of dried leaves surrounding wet ones are burnt to create a smoke which drives the bees out of the comb. Honeybees adopt a very peculiar behavior, called defense waves when they sense a potential threat — they raise their wings and create a wave around the hive as an alarm signal. The honey collectors stay still for several minutes along with smoke to calm the bees and reduce their aggression. Traditionally, the honey collection is done on a moonless night to minimize the number of flying bees once the colony is disturbed. The honey hunter harvests only a portion of honey filled chamber, without harming the honeybees so that bees can return back to repopulate the hive for the next season of honey gathering.
Tales & Rituals
Honey has tremendous socio-economic value in terms of its use in rituals, social, and health benefits. In Saranda Forest, days before the harvest, preparations begin in earnest which articulates a harmonic relationship between people and the nature. Rituals and folklore play an important role, sing to the bees and ask for forgiveness, religious prayers are performed, followed by chanting of mantras, sacrifice of flowers, rice beer and the offering of last season honey to the goddess Vamuna. It is believed that goddess Vamuna protects the honey collectors from wild animals, wild bees and other threats of the forest.
Color & Taste
With smoky & woody wild in taste, it is thick and dark black in color. Compared to the conventional way of centrifugally extracting honey, the natural pollens are not removed during manual extraction which provides a specific natural flavor to this honey. This raw forest honey is unprocessed, unheated and from all types of adulterations & contaminations such as sugar, corn syrup, artificial additives, coloring agents, or preservatives. In fact, we have not deeply filtered it.
Pick me up
A spoonful of forest honey can give you an instant jolt because it contains both glucose and fructose. For a rich topping on bread, potatoes or salads, cornbread, biscuits, muffins and pancakes, to make a perfect sugar free honey tea, it’s good on virtually everything.
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