What is the story behind Chen Xiuying's sweet business?
The essayist Yang Shuo once praised bees thus: they make honey, and in doing so they brew life, not for themselves, but to brew the sweetest life for mankind. Today, in Zanhuang County, Hebei Province, beekeepers all say: besides the bees, Chen Xiuying, president of the beekeeping association, is also well worth praising. Under Chen Xiuying's leadership, not only have our incomes increased, but the Zanhuang County honey brand has also made its name in the market; she is the "creator of a sweet business."
Joining forces to raise the level
Chen Xiuying, now 56 years old, was born in Nanpan Village, Zanhuang County, Hebei Province.
Zanhuang County, situated deep in the Taihang Mountains, has 450,000 mu of jujube plantings, and the locals keep bees and sell honey by relying on the abundant nectar sources bestowed by nature. At the age of 23, Chen Xiuying began keeping bees in earnest and mastered a good deal of beekeeping technique. After marrying, she bought 10 boxes of bees and started running her own sweet business. At that time, the beekeepers of Zanhuang County were scattered deep in the mountains, information was hard to come by, and beekeeping was basically "left to heaven." Chen Xiuying said: "At the time, both beekeeping techniques and farming concepts were very backward, and everything just developed naturally. Queen bees produced little, and the bees' disease resistance and foraging ability were both low. After a year of hard work, losing money was a common occurrence."
She loved bees, yet could not keep them well, and Chen Xiuying was very anxious. In 1994, she got word that our country was going to hold a bee therapy training course, and she signed up at once. Going out to study this time opened her eyes wide: "For farmers in the mountains, beekeeping is a very good industry, but when each household keeps bees on its own, information does not flow smoothly, techniques are hard to update, the industry cannot reach scale, and no one can make money." A thought drifted into Chen Xiuying's mind: establish an association, unite the beekeeping households, and develop together.
To win the support of scattered small beekeepers, Chen Xiuying endured a great deal of hardship. For a long stretch of time, she rode her bike into the mountains early every morning and went door to door, explaining the benefits of joining the association to beekeepers over and over. When hungry, she ate the steamed buns she had brought; when thirsty, she drank a little mountain spring water. Through her efforts, on January 15, 1995, the Zanhuang County Beekeeping Association of Hebei Province was finally established, and Chen Xiuying was elected president.
After the association was founded, Chen Xiuying repeatedly invited domestic beekeeping experts and skilled practitioners to the county for technical guidance, and also sent 16 students to Zhejiang Agricultural University for further study. The association set up a bee industry service department to provide beekeepers with beekeeping equipment; it bought high-quality breeding queen bees, bred queens and gave them to beekeepers free of charge to improve their stock; it subscribed to more than 20 kinds of beekeeping books and periodicals such as "Beekeeping Science and Technology" for beekeepers to study... Driven by the association, the beekeepers' skill levels rose greatly, and most of them mastered the full set of beekeeping techniques.
Expanding the industry and building a brand
Royal jelly, honey, bee pollen... a dazzling array of bee products, after modern packaging, are promoted from the mountains of Zanhuang to the whole country, and they all carry a unified brand: "Ruiyuan."
Chen Xiuying realized that to make products secure a foothold in the market, she had to build her own brand. In 1997, the Zanhuang County Beekeeping Association registered the "Ruiyuan" trademark for bee products, implemented unified packaging and unified sales, and raised the products' market competitiveness.
With good bee products, sales channels also had to be broadened in order to lead the broad ranks of beekeepers to prosperity. Chen Xiuying set her sights on Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, more than 40 km from Zanhuang. At first, she rented a very small storefront in a densely populated area of the city. To promote honey, she pedaled her tricycle to the market early in the morning to publicize it. Sometimes, to catch the morning market, she would pedal her tricycle with goods before dawn to a residential community 10 km away to sell. "Even on heavy snow days, I still went out," she recalled. Hard work pays off. Relying on products of excellent quality and on honesty and trustworthiness, Chen Xiuying gradually won recognition. What began as a crude storefront of less than 10 sq m has grown into more than 10 chain stores spread across Shijiazhuang and sales outlets in surrounding counties and cities.
In 2004, Zanhuang County Ruiyuan Bee Industry Co., Ltd. was formally established, and gradually developed into a comprehensive enterprise integrating the production and operation of various pure natural, high-quality bee products, with annual sales of more than 20 million yuan. Today, "Ruiyuan" bee products have passed the Ministry of Agriculture's pollution-free agricultural product certification and won titles such as Hebei Province Provincial Excellent Product.
Driven by the Zanhuang County Beekeeping Association, Zanhuang County's beekeeping industry has grown step by step, with more than 2,000 farming households, breeding bases across 11 townships and 158 villages throughout the county, annual output of more than 2,000 tons, annual sales exceeding 50 million yuan, and per capita annual income for beekeepers reaching 50,000 yuan.
Cultivating and promoting bee culture
Walking into Ruiyuan Bee Industry Co., Ltd. in Yongfeng Village, Zanhuang County, advanced testing instruments, modern production and processing equipment and supporting cold storage facilities in the factory buildings are in operation; honey, propolis, royal jelly, and honeycomb, after scientific processing, become health products deeply loved by consumers. The company has also established a quality traceability system; through product retention samples and identification codes on the packaging, products can be traced back to their source to ensure product quality.
Chen Xiuying often says that beekeeping is a healthy industry, a sweet business, and that what bees bring everyone is not only wealth but happiness. To develop the beekeeping industry and carry forward bee culture, since 2012 the Zanhuang County Beekeeping Association has held the "Jujube Flower · Honey · Bee" tourism and culture festival for 4 consecutive years, letting more and more people understand this sweet business and enjoy the happiness bees bring.
Chen Xiuying also has an even bigger dream: to build her own "Bee Museum" in Zanhuang County. After several years of effort, within the Ruiyuan Bee Industry factory area, the main structure of a Bee Culture Museum, with an investment of more than 5 million yuan and covering more than 2,000 sq m, integrating bee culture, bee therapy, science popularization and tourism, has been completed. The museum will have six major functional zones, including a bee culture exhibition area, a nectar plant and bee breeding research area, and a bee product processing sightseeing area. It will not only present in vivid and intuitive form our country's long history of beekeeping development and modern beekeeping science and technology, but will also have an experience area where people can experience the joy of collecting pollen and royal jelly and taste authentic royal jelly and honey.
Chen Xiuying says that every part of a bee is a treasure, and she wants to present the splendid and colorful bee culture to everyone.