Wild honey produced from Nyingchi Prefecture of Tibet has become popular on electronic business platform, as the second season of the documentary "A Bite of China" premiered, Tibet Commercial News reported.

In the first episode of "A Bite of China" (II), audiences' eyes were caught by the story of a Tibetan honey hunter Pema Dradul, who endeavored to gather wild honey after three-hour climbing of a 40-meter high tree without any protection measure but some vines.

As soon as the documentary was broadcasted, these breathtaking scenes taking place in southeast Tibet's Nyingchi Prefecture immediately aroused people's appetite.

Many netizens expressed their curiosity and interest, while others began to search the Nyingchi-produced honey on online stores. While the program was on air, over 120 orders were placed with an online store specialized in majoring in Nyingchi honey.

 
Photo shows a screen capture from the second season of the documentary "A Bite of China", reflecting that a Tibetan young honey hunter climbs a 40-meter high tree with only some vines to gather wild honey. [Photo/ Baidu] 

 
Photo shows a screen capture from the second season of the documentary "A Bite of China", reflecting that a Tibetan young honey hunter climbs a 40-meter high tree with only some vines to gather wild honey. [Photo/ Baidu] 

In order to satisfy netizens" needs, "Zangxitang", a distributor of Nyingchi honey who sells near 3,000 jars of homey every day, has cooperated with T-mall, one of the largest website for business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail, to provide customers high-quality honey produced in Tibet.

According to Ma Jifeng, president of apiculture base of "Zangxitang", it takes four major procedures to produce high-quality wild honey: gathering -- processing -- sterilization--market. The treating process calls for strict requirements on the temperature in order to guarantee the quality of honey products.

"The honey mainly comes from Kongpo Gyamda County of Nyingchi Prefecture," said Ma."Due to the seasonal reasons we produce yearly about 20 tons of honey gathered in Yarlung Tsangpo River Valley and Lhasa Linka. To guarantee the freshness of honey, we process honey in the morning and sell them in the afternoon."

In the apiculture base, over 70 rectangle wooden cases are placed in the courtyard, where the noise of hum can be heard. "Compared with grazing cattle and sheep, bee farm needs to move much more frequently," according to Liang Yongqiang, a bee keeper of the bee house.

"In Nyingchi areas, we would move according to different flowering seasons, staying in a same nectar sources no more than 50 days. In Nyingchi we chase pear flowers and plum flowers in March, peach blossoms in the midmonth of April, as well as apple blossoms and rape flowers in the end of April. Then as Nyingchi- out bee farm in winter- enters into rainy season, we would move to Lhasa for rape flowers and wild flowers there," said Liang.

"Bees prefer pure natural fragrance to flowers treated with pesticides, thus we would move to chase different wild flowers. Being a bee keeper, the most tiring thing is moving the bee farm from one place to another," said Liang. 

Photo shows a screen capture from the second season of the documentary "A Bite of China", reflecting that a Tibetan young honey hunter climbs a 40-meter high tree with only some vines to gather wild honey. [Photo/ Baidu]

Photo shows a screen capture from the second season of the documentary "A Bite of China", reflecting Tibetan cate, butter mixed with honey. [Photo/ Baidu]

However, their hardwork is rewarding. The preferred temperature for nectariferous plants flowering and producing honey is 16℃ to 30℃, on an altitude of 1,500 meters to 3,000 meters. The larger the temperature difference is, the more honey can be produced. In Tibet thanks to the large temperature difference caused by the elevation difference, a stereoscopic nectar sources distribution has been formed, and produces high-quality natural honey.

Butter mixed with honey is one of the cates loved by Tibetans, which has health care effect to human's internal organs.

A Bite of China is a 2012 Chinese documentary television series on the history of food, eating, and cooking in China. It first aired May 14, 2012 on China Central Television and quickly gained high ratings and widespread popularity. The seven-episode documentary series, which began filming in March 2011, introduces the history and story behind foods of various kinds in more than 60 locations in China.

Photo shows a screen capture from the second season of the documentary "A Bite of China", reflecting Tibetan cate, butter mixed with honey. [Photo/ Baidu]

Photo shows a screen capture from the second season of the documentary "A Bite of China", reflecting Tibetan cate, butter mixed with honey. [Photo/ Baidu]