Zitlang, East Sikkim

Zitlang sits at the eastern edge of Sikkim, on slopes that drop from oak-and-cardamom forest down toward the Teesta valley. The village is small — a few hundred households spread across stepped terraces — and the surrounding forest has never been commercially logged. It was the first place we set up a beekeeper collective in 2021. The conditions are close to ideal: dense undergrowth, a long flowering season, and almost no agricultural runoff because Sikkim has been fully organic since 2016. Most of our Zitlang beekeepers grew up watching their parents keep hives in hollow tree trunks. What we added was the equipment, the training, and a guaranteed price — three to four times what they were getting from the village middleman.