The Beekeeper King Raises Bees and Makes Honey, Achieving a Sweet Career
In Luxi, Hunan, if you want to eat authentic, original, aromatic and sweet honey, the best thing to do is find the "Beekeeper King." Ask any beekeeper in Luxi about the "Beekeeper King," and almost everyone knows him. He is Yang Zhongqing, chairman of the Qingfeng Ecological Breeding Professional Cooperative.
Hongtuxi Xinnyu Peak is located at the end of the Wuling Mountains. Here, peaks rise one after another, green trees form shade, flowers bloom in all four seasons, and the environment is beautiful. At the foot of the mountain is a natural, excellent place for ecological beekeeping, with rows of beehives neatly placed under the shade of the trees. A middle-aged man with a ruddy face and a refined appearance was busy inspecting the beehives. Seeing us arrive, he hurried over to greet us. It turned out that he was the "Beekeeper King" everyone talked about.
The "Beekeeper King" told us that together with more than 70 members, he raises more than 1,200 boxes of bees. Each year, sales revenue from bee breeding stock is more than 100,000 yuan, and sales revenue from bee products such as honey, beeswax, and bee pollen is more than 4 million yuan. Today, beekeeping has become the sweet career through which he has achieved a turning point in life and pursued his life's ideals.
When talking about his entrepreneurial experience, Yang Zhongqing naturally had his share of bitterness and hardship in his heart. In 2001, he suffered his first setback in life when the grain department was restructured and he lost his job at the grain station. That period was the darkest time of his life. For a while, he was listless and depressed.
With the help of his family, he finally pulled himself together again and began working hard to find a new job. He had worked as a temporary worker and had also tried marketing ponkan... After many attempts and much thought, he discovered that beekeeping was a "short, flat, and fast" wealth-building project with little investment, quick results, and low risk. Perhaps this was his chance to change his fate.
He acted as soon as he decided. Beekeeping sounds easy, but doing it is very difficult. At first, because he did not understand the techniques, neglected management, and lacked experience, the more than 10 boxes of bees Yang Zhongqing introduced contracted bee mite disease. The young bees did not develop well, and adult bees died in large numbers. The apiary almost suffered a disaster of total destruction. Relying on a stubborn unwillingness to admit defeat, he kept fighting after repeated failures and never gave up. He bought many books on beekeeping techniques, humbly sought advice from experts, and learned from masters. Hard work pays off. After countless falls and rises again, in 2005 he raised 20 boxes of bees, produced more than 2,000 jin of honey, and earned more than 50,000 yuan in income. Yang Zhongqing's sweet career had finally taken its first successful step.
After years of exploration and learning, Yang Zhongqing developed many ideas about the beekeeping business. He realized that small-scale scattered breeding and traditional business methods could hardly adapt to market needs, nor were they conducive to the development of the beekeeping industry. In 2012, led by him, more than 10 nearby specialized beekeeping households established Luxi County's first beekeeping professional cooperative - "Luxi County Qingfeng Ecological Breeding Professional Cooperative." Through cooperative operation, they achieved sharing of information, technology, and benefits. That year, the breeding scale reached more than 310 boxes, with sales revenue of more than 930,000 yuan.
Now that he was wealthy himself, he did not forget his fellow villagers. As long as someone asked Yang Zhongqing for advice on beekeeping techniques, he was happy to teach them. Tian Zulin, a villager from Lishiping Village, Xixi Town, had been a well-known poor household in the village two years earlier. His whole family depended on the money he earned from odd jobs away from home to get by. By chance, he had the good fortune to meet Yang Zhongqing. Yang Zhongqing introduced beekeeping to him as a wealth-building project and personally took him to the apiary to inspect it, teaching him ecological beekeeping techniques, which strengthened his confidence in using beekeeping to build a better life.
"Without Master Yang's patient guidance, I could not have taken the path of escaping poverty and becoming rich through beekeeping." When talking about how beekeeping brought wealth, Old Tian was full of emotion. At first, he knew nothing about basic beekeeping techniques such as honey harvesting, colony splitting, and pest and disease control. It was Yang Zhongqing's visits every few days to guide him that enabled him to gradually master the skill of beekeeping. Once, swarming fever broke out among the bees in his apiary. Fortunately, Yang Zhongqing arrived in time and guided him on the spot in how to adjust the combs, resolving the crisis at the apiary for him. Today, his beekeeping scale has grown to more than 50 boxes, with annual income of more than 40,000 yuan, making him a local expert at getting rich.
After more than 10 years of struggle and hard work, Yang Zhongqing has become a veritable "Beekeeper King." He has good beekeeping skills, rich experience, and a warm and generous nature, constantly attracting more people to join his beekeeping team. At present, the cooperative has grown to 72 members, with an annual beekeeping scale of more than 1,200 boxes, radiating outward to drive more than 430 surrounding farming households to develop ecological bee breeding.
"Our cooperative mainly deals in green, pollution-free, safe, and reassuring honey products, without adding any additives. Consumers can buy with peace of mind and eat with confidence." While showing us around the apiary, Yang Zhongqing did not forget to promote his bee products. At present, his cooperative produces and sells a variety of products such as honey, beeswax, and bee flower honey, and has successfully registered the "Xiang Qingfeng" brand honey trademark. It mainly sells across the country through the "Internet + micro-business" platform, with annual sales of more than 50,000 jin of bee products and profits of more than 3.2 million yuan.
Today, the "Beekeeper King" is even busier. His figure rushes along the roads of Pushi, Wuxi, Tanxi, Xixi, Xinglongchang, and other townships. Delivering breeding stock to households and guiding beekeepers in scientific ecological breeding have become his main tasks at present. "In 2016, the county provided 800 yuan per household in poverty alleviation funds for each box to accurately identify poor households. This favorable policy has brought good news to us beekeepers and will surely drive the rapid and healthy development of the beekeeping industry." From these words of the "Beekeeper King" Yang Zhongqing, we saw the prospects and hope of the beekeeping industry.
Wang Fang Xie Shenwang