We spent a hellish hot night in a Kohalpur hotel. It’s so hot here. Like Mahendranagar, we are subject to the desert winds of northern India. I’m constantly drinking water. A man from a bee association in this region met us first thing. Krishna is going back to Kathmandu for a family wedding and start classes again so it’s Dipak and I going out to day under the guidance of the bee association. We catch a bus and walk for about four kilometers across paddocks to a house with hives built into the walls. It’s Dipak and I, and a man from the local bee association who is our guide. Poor Krishna. He’s 29 and it’s expected in Hindu culture for men to be married by 30. He’s 26 but the pressure is mounting for him to find a bride. And finding a bride means someone who is culturally appropriate and satisfies both parents. If he can’t, then his family will probably find one for him. And he is balding, which he thinks will make him less attractive to women. He’s confused as to where this balding comes from because his father and brothers all have strong hair. He asks me what disease is doing this. I explain its genetics and not a disease, and that my situation is identical.
We get to the house after a hot dry walk across the flat, searing landscape. There are animals being tended by children in the open space. The house has two holes in its clay walls that are access points to cavities deliberately built into the design. Yes they deliberately build their houses to accommodate bees. These spaces are included in the wall with exit holes. We climb up into the attic and each cavity has a wooden hatch to allow access to the hives. The idea is to create an attractive environment and the bees will come. And they do. But in this case one hive is the Asian honey bee and the other is occupied by stingless honey bees. The farmer would prefer the Asian honey bee because it’s bigger and produces mor honey. It’s an interesting way to keep bees. We walk back to the road and bus into town to visit the hospital. It’s a spectacular building that is also a medical teaching school. We’re here because there are many colonies of bees making their home on the underside of cement window shades. These are large native honey bees, Apis dorsata, which are yet to be domesticated. And they are aggressive. People have learnt how to rob the hives in the wild.
Back to the hotel we pack up and catch a bus to a bus exchange place. But on the way we are guided to another place where stingless bees are being kept. From here we leave our bee-association guide and bus to meet a friend of Dipak. His name is Ishwori and he is a professor of statistics at Tribhuvan University. He arrives and we find a bus to Sandhikharka. This turns out to possibly being the worst bus trip of my life. We leave the flats to get up into the hills. It’s slow and the old bus is packed. The road is rough. We get to Sandhikharka around 9.30pm and stumble around near the bus park looking for a hotel. We find one and it’s dinner and bed. Tomorrow we start early to catch a jeep bus to Ishwori’s home.
angusmccoll 