Bark hives
A cylinder of bark stripped whole from a living tree, sewn or pegged into a tube and hung high in the miombo woodland. It supports one of the largest traditional beekeeping economies anywhere, and it raises a genuine and much-argued question about the trees.
Current status
Widespread living practice
Practised across a substantial area by many communities, and currently documented.
In current large-scale use, with certified export volumes and development-sector reporting providing direct present-tense documentation.
How a bark hive is made
A section of bark is ring-cut and eased off a suitable tree in one piece, formed into a cylinder, closed at the ends and hung horizontally high in another tree. It is far lighter than a log hive, much faster to make, and needs no tools beyond an axe.
Hives are hung out of reach of honey badgers and away from the homestead, sometimes dozens per beekeeper spread across a wide area of woodland. Harvest is by climbing at night, smoking, and cutting comb from one end.
The miombo economy
Bark-hive beekeeping across the miombo woodland of Zambia, Tanzania, Angola and Malawi is among the largest traditional beekeeping systems in the world by number of hives, and in north-western Zambia it supplies a certified organic export trade. It is a forest economy: the honey is a cash crop that depends on woodland standing.
Making and hanging
Bark is taken when the sap is rising and the bark lifts cleanly, which restricts hive making to a season. The cylinder is bound, the ends closed with wood or bark discs, and the whole hive baited and hoisted with a rope, often several metres up and away from paths and livestock.
A beekeeper may hang dozens of hives across an area of woodland, checking and harvesting them on foot over days. Occupancy is never complete, so the number of hives out is the main determinant of the harvest.
Pressures and conservation
Bark stripping damages individual trees; the disputed question is the landscape-scale effect relative to charcoal production and agricultural clearance. Beekeeping also gives communities an economic reason to keep woodland standing, which cuts the other way.
What this page does not claim
That bark hives are ecologically harmless, or that they are the main threat to miombo woodland. Both positions appear in the literature, the evidence is mixed and site-specific, and this record does not choose between them.
In short
- Bark stripped whole from a living tree, formed into a cylinder and hung high.
- One of the largest traditional beekeeping systems in the world, supplying certified export honey.
- The effect on the woodland is genuinely disputed, and this record says so.
Sources
- Bees and their role in forest livelihoods — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2009) · Industry body
- Bees and Beekeeping: Science, Practice and World Resources — Heinemann Newnes (1990) · Monograph
- The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting — Routledge (1999) · Historical text
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.