Pak Teh and Bill Jones

Pak Teh Lebah

I am sad indeed to let you know that Pak Teh the honey hunter died on 16 November 2009 aged 84 years. Pak Teh passed on to me very valuable knowledge, wisdom and experience about the giant honey bees and honey hunting in the rainforest of Malaysia. I owe him a great deal for many of my insights about the forest, the bees and the wildlife. I feel lucky to have made the documentary with Discovery channel about Pak Teh conveying the cultural baton of honey hunting to his grandsons, Nizam and Shukor.

Professor Makhdzir Mardan, Universiti Putra, Malaysia

Pak Teh’s honey hunting skills featured in BfD Journals 35 and 83, and in Diana Cohn’s book The Bee Tree

W W Jones

Bill Jones died at the end of summer. Bill gave unstinting support to Bees for Development for many years, gathering a group of fellow Trustees and ensuring that Bf D Trust became established as a registered charity. Bill was the right man for the job in developing a water-tight constitution and formulating workable rules for the new Charity. He supported us in all ventures, always offering sound advice. Despite tremendous mobility problems, Bill would until recently travel from Milton Keynes to Monmouth for meetings, and when that became too difficult, stayed in touch by e-mail. Bill supported several charities, especially Tools for Self Reliance, and there will be many other people missing him as we do.