Ruyang County, Henan: A "Venomous" Niche Business Paves the Way to Prosperity

On August 25, in Yangjiaogou Group, Wangping Group, Wangping Township, Ruyang County, Henan Province, wasp farmer Zhang Qingmin and his partner Song Dashou put on specially made protective suits and prepared to harvest wasp pupae. "I just went over to take a look at the gourd nest and accidentally got stung on the hand by a wasp," Song Dashou told the reporter.

Wasp

In mountainous areas, there is a kind of wasp that habitually builds gourd-shaped nests on tall trees using aged bark, known as the "gourd nest." Even for mountain dwellers, the mere mention of a gourd nest inspires deep caution, because these wasps are large, long-bodied, highly venomous and aggressive; if stung, the victim may suffer unbearable pain in mild cases or lose their life in severe ones.

Zhang Qingmin, 46 years old this year, is a man who deals specifically with wasps and works in the wasp farming industry. "A gourd nest can yield three batches of pupae each year. Starting from around the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, one batch is harvested every 20 days, and each nest produces about 10 jin," Zhang Qingmin told the reporter.

Gourd nest insects, namely wasp pupae, are rich in protein and a rare delicacy. Mountain people harvest them at great risk, and besides eating them themselves, they also sell them to the restaurant industry at about 160 yuan per kilogram. Zhang Qingmin, who lives in the mountains, saw a business opportunity in this and conceived the idea of farming wasps.

To raise gourd nests, you first need queens. In May this year, Zhang Qingmin and Song Dashou jointly invested tens of thousands of yuan to learn the techniques from elsewhere and introduced more than 100 queens. After careful feeding, when the wasps had bred to about 5 individuals and the nest had begun to take shape, they followed the wasps' living habits and chose hillsides near their own homes as farming sites, hanging the nascent nests in the trees. The two successfully developed more than 100 gourd nests.

That day, at the pupae-harvesting site, we met Zhang Qingmin and Song Dashou, these two "bold" men. They put on thick protective suits like space suits, sealing the joints of each other's suits to prevent wasps from "invading," and walked into Zhang Qingmin's gourd nest farming site with its 28 wasp nests. Choosing a relatively large gourd nest, Song Dashou carefully cut away a piece of the outer layer of the nest with a small knife, then used a homemade tool to cut the connection point between the brood comb and the nest chamber, taking out 3 sections of brood comb. Around the cut gourd nest, thousands of wasps flew about wildly, making the pupae-harvesting work extremely difficult.

Zhang Qingmin explained: "Wasps have 'three treasures': pupae, venom and nests. The pupae can go on the dining table, the venom can be collected with a special venom collector, and both the venom and the nest have high medicinal value. This gourd nest business is not bad at all."

Wasps feed on locusts, caterpillars, bean green worms and various other leaf-eating plant pests. In the farmland next to the farming site, the beans Zhang Qingmin planted were blooming with small flowers and growing lushly and promisingly. Pointing at the bean field, Zhang Qingmin told the reporter: "My beans have not a single pest, and the nearby woods have no pests either. This thing is a guardian of crops and forests!"

Zhang Qingmin is full of confidence in his "gourd nest business": "Raising gourd nests is easy once you hang the nascent nests in the trees. They forage for themselves and build their own nests. The key is to guard them well, not let people or large livestock enter the farming area, and avoid stinging accidents. Then you just wait for the harvest. With this year's trial farming success, next year I will expand the farming scale, gradually spread it to surrounding villages, and lead my neighbors to prosperity."