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Jimmy's quest for high-rise honey

This meant he would be dangling off a tiny ladder over a 60m cliff,surrounded by over two million giant angry bees.

    Sat by the river bank at the foot of a bee cliff, surrounded bysmoke and the toxic smell of local rice wine, we all craned ournecks to watch the tiny figure perched high above us on a bamboo rung, surrounded by a black cloud of buzzing.

    Jimmy was sat beside me watching intently, desperately trying toabsorb the technique this local honey hunter was using - fortomorrow it would be his turn up the ladder.

    The honey hunter held a long pole, which he was using as a simplecutting tool to slice through the brood comb, a hugetwo-metre-long, bright-yellow waxy lobe, behind which the honey waskept.

    Suddenly there was a loud shout from above, and I saw a door shapedyellow object hurtle towards the ground and crash square on to thehead of a man stood directly below.

    The impact was so colossal it completely floored him, and honeysplattered all over the place, enveloping him like a big sugary,gloopy parcel.