Pak Yusuf sat at the edge of a decades-old beehive, gazing at the golden Sumbawa forest sky. In his hands, a glass of raw honey — dark, thick, with a wild flower aroma no factory can replicate. "This is not work," he said softly. "This is responsibility."
The beginning: an ancestral legacy
The bee-keeping tradition in Pak Yusuf's family has spanned three generations. His grandfather was the first to discover a colony of Apis dorsata bees on these hillsides, and since then his family have been unpaid guardians — keeping the bees alive, the forest thriving, and the honey flowing.
No iron cages, no artificial hives. The wild bees are free to choose their own trees, free to choose which flowers to visit. The result is honey with a flavour profile impossible to replicate — dependent on whichever flowers are blooming in the forest that season.
“If this forest dies, the bees leave. If the bees leave, the fruit here disappears too. We protect the bees, which means we protect ourselves as well.”
The remaining Sumbawa forests
Sumbawa holds one of the still relatively intact tropical forest areas in eastern Indonesia. This is where wild bees Apis dorsata — a species that builds large nests on high tree branches — can still be found in healthy numbers. Pak Yusuf and his family know every tree, every colony.
Did you know?
Sumbawa forest honey contains 3–5× higher antibacterial activity than ordinary farmed honey, because wild bees access hundreds of types of wild flowers rich in antimicrobial compounds.
A harvest full of respect
Harvesting is only done twice a year — the first flowering season (March–April) and the second (September–October). Pak Yusuf never harvests more than 60% of the total honey in one hive. "The rest is for them," he says, referring to the bee colony that must still have food reserves.
No heat processing, no excessive filtering. The honey is packed in clean glass jars and shipped directly to the BaleSehat warehouse within 48 hours of harvest. This is why it still contains natural propolis, pollen, and living enzymes.
From the forest to your kitchen
Every bottle of Sumbawa Forest Honey that reaches you is the result of a short chain we guard tightly: Pak Yusuf → BaleSehat warehouse → your kitchen. No distributors, no middlemen. Pak Yusuf receives 40% above market price, and you get genuinely pure honey.
Next time you drizzle a spoonful of honey into your tea, picture Pak Yusuf in the Sumbawa forest, waiting for sunset before climbing the tree to harvest — using the exact same technique his grandfather once taught him.