Little bees forge a path to prosperity, beekeeping boosts income with bright prospects

"From starting to keep bees last year until now, in just half a year, more than 20 hives produced over 70 jin of honey. Sold at the market price of 120-160 yuan per kilogram, I earned more than 5,000 yuan from my first honey harvest this year." Recently, Chen Shiguang, a farmer from Qumu Village, Quzhang Township, Hepu County, happily calculated his "sweet account" for the reporter. By this estimate, he can shake off the label of impoverished household this year.

Over the past two years, the impoverished households of Qumu Village, Quzhang Township, under the guidance and drive of Cheng Weidong, the first secretary stationed in the village, have gradually embarked on the road to shaking off poverty and becoming prosperous through beekeeping.

Cheng Weidong is the first secretary dispatched to Qumu Village by the Municipal CPPCC. When he first entered Qumu Village, Cheng Weidong found that Qumu Village is located in a remote corner, with backward farming techniques, and, on top of having more people than land, farming was only enough for self-sufficiency, with no other extra income at all, leaving nearly half of the households impoverished. Seeing this, Cheng Weidong was anxious at heart, and how to shake off poverty became his most troubling issue.

Facing difficulties, Cheng Weidong was not discouraged. To help the villagers shake off poverty, he had tried various ventures such as growing mushrooms and raising pigs and cattle, but all showed results rather slowly. Cheng Weidong told the reporter that raising cattle has a relatively long cycle, and moreover the cost of buying calves is very high. Although raising pigs can show results within the same year, the input cost is also large. Besides the piglets, feed must also be purchased, and in the end a single pig could only sell for more than 300 yuan.

By an accidental opportunity, Cheng Weidong learned that beekeeping has low cost, small risk, high profit and quick results, and Qumu Village has lush forests, with natural conditions and environment very suitable for keeping bees, so he was determined to give it a try and identified the beekeeping industry as the industry for shaking off poverty. With this idea, Cheng Weidong mobilized impoverished farmer households to try beekeeping. Starting last year, in just half a year, of the 34 impoverished households in the whole village, more than 20 have now begun beekeeping, and quite a few farmer households already shook off poverty that same year.

At present, the sweet undertaking of "beekeeping" has been fully rolled out in Qumu Village.