The Harvest of Kelulut Honey, Koto Pait Community Group

The community group of Kelulut Honey facilitated by Belantara in Koto Pait Beringin village has succeeded in harvesting kelulut honey on Tuesday, February 16 (16/02/2021). This is the third harvest for kelulut bee honey since the initial preparation in November 2019. One box of kelulut honey bee hives can produce approximately 500 ml/hive. This community group has succeeded in producing 14 bottles of honey with each bottle containing 250 ml of honey.

Belantara has collaborated with local partners to facilitate community groups on kelulut honey cultivation since October 2019. Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, in April 2020, Belantara immediately took over the program facilitation. Belantara provides experts in kelulut honey cultivation to facilitate and provide guidance for community groups. In addition, Belantara also facilitates equipment and tools for kelulut honey cultivation, such as hives for the bees, special clothes for honey harvesting, production and harvesting tools, as well as bottles and trademark labels for final packaging.

Kelulut honey is not quite popular in Indonesia, even though the cultivation of kelulut honey is relatively easy compared to other honey types. This is because the honey bee kelulut is produced from a type of bee that has no sting. Thus, the maintenance of hives and colonies is also relatively simple. In addition, kelulut honey also has a distinctive taste, which is more acidic and fresher than other types of honey.

In Javanese society, kelulut honey is known as klanceng honey, for Sundanese it is commonly known as gala-gala and teuweul, while for Balinese, kelulut bee is known as kele-kele. The habitat of kelulut honey bees is generally distributed in tropical climates and also in some subtropical climates. Belantara Foundation hopes that this kelulut honey cultivation can provide benefits in the form of additional income for community groups.