An intrepid honey badger recently raided the fridge in Cope LP Nick Koornhof's holiday home in the Hoedspruit area.

The honey badger let himself into the house by lifting the sliding doors off their rails. He then opened the fridge and helped himself to the meat, leaving the vegetables untouched.

Getting up early on the Sunday morning (27 May), Nick surprised the badger who casually strolled out of the house.

According to the report in Media24's newspapers the farmers in the area were not surprised by the fridge break-in of the badger. It's been known to happen, they said.

The late Lieutenant-Colonel, J. Stevenson-Hamilton, formerly Warden of the Kruger National Park, in his book on wildlife behaviour, Wild Life in South Africa, published in 1947, attests to this as well:

"In captivity the honey badger becomes extremely tame and gentle, and is a most amusing companion. It displays an intense yearning for sugar, treacle, and in fact any other sweet things, which must therefore be carefully put out of its reach, with a mental note that it displays great ingenuity in prizing open the doors of cupboards and presses in its search for delicacies. Where closely confined, it has an amusing way of passing the time by turning somersaults."

Did you know?

• The honey badger is also known as the ratel.
• Its diet consists of a range of small creatures (mice, scorpions, lizards and snakes).
• Although named for its love of honey, the ratel also raids beehives for larvae, not just honey.
• A honey badger has been recording as stealing a steenbok from a brown hyena.

Read extracts from Wild Honey, Bookey Peek's account of an orphaned honey badger they raised and returned to the wild.

Click here to read an excerpt about Buksie, the mischievous honey badger, raised by author Kobie Krüger and written about in her book Mahlangeni Stories of a Game Ranger's family.