Honey bee season

This was a surprising and memorable experience for me. On Highway 20 towards Cau Dat, near the Hoa Xa Tunnel, there is a pine forest by the roadside, often called a bee farm here, on the way leading to a coffee growing area suitable for bees to fly to find honey.

Bees usually move according to the flower seasons of the year. In the month when longan and coconut flowers bloom in the West, in the month when they collect rubber honey in Binh Phuoc, the bees only return to Da Lat about 10 days before the first coffee flowers bloom.

Coffee flowers blooming in the first season give off a strong fragrance mixed with a sweet taste that makes bees absorbed in collecting nectar. If you walk in the coffee garden, you will see bees intoxicated by the scent and nectar, forgetting the presence of humans. After the first blooming period, about 2-3 weeks, people can harvest honey.

The honey collection process has many beautiful stages. Under the pine tree, people spread nets and let out a lot of smoke to collect the honey patches, prepare to cut off the top, cover with wax, and put them in a rotating barrel to press the honey. The stages sound simple, but for tourists who witness honey collection for the first time, they are surprised.

In March, Da Lat not only has fog, clouds, dryness, and cold, but also has the pure color of coffee flowers, with a strong fragrance mixed with the sweet taste of honey spreading everywhere.

Heritage Magazine