Beekeeping Helps Alleviate Poverty in Remote Villages

Photo/text by Ke Hao & Zhang Huakui

Shi Chengqiang, a technician, checks beehives on a cliff of Moon Bay in Guangshan Village of Zhushan County. These 200 beehives formed the first “cliff wall bee farm” in this county竹山縣擂鼓鎮廣山村月亮灣的石壁上，技術員石成強查看懸掛的蜂箱。竹山縣首個“崖壁蜂場”落戶擂鼓鎮廣山村，首期投放蜂箱200個

It was a day in early summer.We saw several dozen beehives lined up one after another on a cliff in the deep mountainous forest of Yaozhuang Village in Zhushan County,northwest of China’s Hubei Province. Having parked his motorcycle, Quan Jun, a villager,put on a bee worker hat, squatted down by a beehive and carefully opened the cover to check the honey production, as he was taught by a technician. He slowly took out a wooden frame filled with golden combs covered with bees, honey shining and dripping off of it.

“This honey is made by local bees, and is worth more than foreign bee honey. When the market is good, one jin (equal to 500 grams) is worth 100 yuan. I just sold a bit more than 300 jin,and made more than 30,000 yuan out of it.” Quan Jun told us with a smile.

In 2016, Quan Jun, who’s from a poor family and had been working outside his hometown,returned to his village. He tried to raise pigs and cattle by borrowing money, which didn’t work out well for him. In 2019, the Chinese honey bee farming industry was introduced to the village. He decided to give it a go and started keeping 110 beehives for other poor families in the area. After reproduction and swarming,the number of his beehives has increased to 180. He became a famous local figure, known as the“Big beekeeper.” This local bee he refers to is the Chinese honey bee, while the term “foreign bees”refers to foreign species.

“My beehives can be found everywhere on the Huanglong Mountains. Without the poverty alleviation team, I couldn’t have achieved this much.”

In Zhushan County, there are many other beekeepers who have benefited from beekeeping,much like Quan Jun. Last year,the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) Poverty Alleviation Team in Zhushan distributed 3,000 boxes of Chinese honey bees, which were locally reproduced and cultivated,to 39 villages in 17 townships,and indirectly increased 5,000 families’ (including 1,500 poverty-stricken families’)production and income by an average of 4000 yuan per household per year.

Technicians deliver the new-style beehives with movable combs to families in need 技術員將新式活框蜂箱送給貧困戶

初夏，竹山縣擂鼓鎮腰莊村山林深處的一片坡地，幾十個蜂箱依次排開。村民全軍停好摩托車，戴上蜂工帽，走到一只蜂箱旁蹲下，按照技術員教的方法，小心翼翼地打開蓋板檢查產蜜情況。隨著一片木框被緩緩取出，金燦燦的蜂巢上布滿了蜜蜂，蜂巢里的蜂蜜晶瑩剔透。

“這些都是土蜂子釀的蜜，比洋蜂的蜜值錢，行情好的時候一斤100塊錢。我剛賣了一次蜜，300多斤賣了3萬多塊錢。”全軍邊說邊笑。

2016年，外出打工的貧困戶全軍返回村里，借錢養豬養牛，日子過得緊巴巴的。2019年，中華小蜜蜂養殖產業政策推廣到村里，他抱著試試看的念頭，開始代養周邊貧困戶的110箱，經過繁殖分箱，現在變成了180箱，成為當地小有名氣的“養蜂大戶”。這種中華小蜜蜂就是他所說的“土蜂子”，“洋蜂”則是些外國飛來的品種。

“背后的黃龍山上，到處都有我的蜂箱，要不是有扶貧隊，我今天這個局面是不可能有的。”

在竹山縣，像全軍一樣從養蜂中嘗到甜頭的蜂農還有很多。去年，國家煙草專賣局駐竹山縣扶貧隊將本地擴繁培育的3000箱中華小蜜蜂蜂種，發放到了17個鄉鎮39個村，間接帶動5000戶農民（其中貧困戶1500戶）增產增收，戶均年增收4000元。

竹山地處秦巴集中連片貧困地區，是國家級深度貧困縣，也是南水北調中線工程重要水源涵養區和江漢平原的重要生態屏障，開發多方面受限，許多工業項目進不來，多年來發展受到限制。

Cooperative staff come to help collect raw honey for families in need合作社工作人員上門為貧困戶采集原蜜

Zhushan is located in the contiguous poverty-stricken area of the Qinling and Daba Mountains. It is a national-level county of extreme poverty, yet it is also an important water conservancy for the central route of the South-North Water Diversion Project as well as an important ecological barrier of the Jianghan Plain. Due to these factors, many industrial projects cannot be conducted here, and local development has been restricted in many ways. As a result, it has an underdeveloped economy.

In 2013 the STMA was paired up with Zhushan in the poverty reduction program. Since then tobacco planting has helped to lift tobacco farmers out of poverty.Yet there are more mountains than farmlands in Zhushan, so the development of the tobacco industry is also restricted.

The poverty alleviation team noticed the beehives scattered in the mountains during their field investigation. It turned out that this is an important habitat for Chinese honey bees. With more than 100 kinds of honey producing flora, which cover an area of more than 2 million mu (1 mu is about 666 square meters),continuous bloom time and a long flowering period, this area makes an ideal spot for beekeeping.

Moreover, beekeeping has always been a local tradition here,which never expanded on a large scale as an industry, since most beekeepers still follow small-scale traditional ways.

In 2018, field visits and scientific investigations by relevant experts showed that the existing honey-producing flora could support 100,000 bee colonies, while at present there are only 10,000 in the whole county. Therefore, Zhushan has a great prospect for developing beekeeping industry.

When Chinese honey bee farming was established as the featured industry for poverty alleviation in Zhushan, the promotion process was not easy.In order to help poor families master modern beekeeping technology, the poverty alleviation team organized and trained 15 beekeeping experts,carried out beekeeping skills training for 2,200 people, built 39 demonstration areas for the Chinese honey bee industry,adopted the development model of “capable person leading +tobacco industry supporting,” and had subsidized 600 extremely poor families in the county to purchase beehives so far.

Jinyeqing Honey Factory produces high-quality honey 金葉情甜蜜工廠生產出高品質蜂蜜

自2013年國家煙草專賣局定點幫扶竹山以來，煙葉種植幫助貧困煙農100%脫貧。但竹山山多地少，煙葉產業發展受限。

扶貧干部調研過程中，群山中零零散散放置的蜂箱引起了他們的注意：原來這里是中華小蜜蜂的重要生活區，境內有蜜源植物100多種，其中天然野生蜜源植物200多萬畝，分布廣，花期長，主要蜜源花期銜接好，是蜜蜂養殖最佳場所，而且當地一直有養蜂的傳統，因多數蜂農以傳統養殖為主，養蜂一直未形成規模。

2018年，通過相關專家實地考察和科學論證，現有蜜源可支撐蜂群10萬群，目前全縣蜂群只有1萬群，竹山縣發展養蜂產業大有可為。

中華小蜜蜂養殖被確定為竹山的特色扶貧產業，但推廣并不容易。為讓貧困戶掌握科學養蜂技術，扶貧隊組織培養了15名養蜂能手，開展了2200人次的科學養蜂技能培訓，建成39個中蜂產業示范村，采取“能人帶動+煙草扶持”發展模式，并資助全縣600戶深度貧困戶購置蜂箱。

通過“聯合社+合作社+基地+農戶+訂單”的形式，標準化養蜂得到普及。截至目前，全縣蜜蜂飼養量達3萬箱，年可生產新鮮蜂蜜40萬公斤，實現產值6000萬元，成為脫貧致富的“甜蜜”產業。

與腰莊村相距不遠的廣山村月亮灣扶貧易遷安置點，一間寬敞潔凈的工廠格外顯眼。這里是竹山第一家有蜂蜜加工資質的工廠，展示間里擺滿了各種不同規格、包裝精美的蜂蜜產品。“在這里加工蜂蜜附加值提高了很多，即便在疫情期間，產品也供不應求。”國家煙草專賣局駐竹山縣扶貧隊干部、掛職副縣長王玲介紹，扶貧隊正聯合中國農業科學院蜜蜂研究所在竹山創建“全國蜂業示范縣”，打造蜜蜂小鎮、蜜蜂文化產業園、蜜源植物景觀園等10家蜜蜂休閑文旅基地，實現傳統養蜂業向休閑、度假、養生產業升級。

“馬上可以開著新買的貨車去拖蜂箱了，日子越過越有奔頭了。”剛獲得駕照的全軍告訴我們，他已與10戶貧困戶達成協議，新增代養50箱中華小蜜蜂。

A beekeeper checking the reproduction of bees in the breeding farm繁育蜂場的蜂農查看蜜蜂的繁殖情況

Through the model of “co-op+ cooperative + base + farmers +orders,” standardized beekeeping began to gain popularity. Now,the county has 30,000 bee colonies, which can produce 400,000 kilograms of fresh honey annually and generate value of 60 million yuan. Beekeeping has become a real sweet industry,which is lifting the locals out of poverty and leading them towards affluence.

A spacious and clean factory is particularly prominent on the resettlement site of the poverty alleviation program in Moon Bay of Guangshan Village, not far from Yaozhuang Village. This is the first honey-processing factory in Zhushan. The display room is filled with honey products of various specifications and complete with nice packaging.“Processing honey locally has greatly increased its added value.Our product is in short supply even during the epidemic.” Wang Ling, the deputy head of Zhushan County and a member of the STMA poverty alleviation team,said that their team is working with the Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to establish a “national beekeeping demonstration county” in Zhushan. 10 bee-theme leisure and cultural tourism bases will be built, comprising of bee town, bee cultural industrial park, and honey-producing flora garden, to eventually achieve the upgraded status from traditional beekeeping to a comprehensive industry of leisure, vacation, and health.

“Soon I’ll be able to drive my new truck to get more beehives—my life is getting better and better,” Quan Jun told us. He has just got his driver’s license and signed a contract with 10 poor families to keep 50 more boxes of Chinese honey bees for them.

About Chinese honey bees

There are mainly two kinds of bees in China,namely Italian bees and Chinese honey bees(Apis cerana). Italian bees are also called Western bees. They are larger in size and high yielding, generally suited for flower-chasing mobile beekeeping. The vast majority of honey in domestic markets is Italian bee honey. The Chinese honey bee, also known in China as local bees, is a native bee species of China. It is the main pollinating insect for traditional crops as well as forests of multiple and mixed species. It was called “Baihuadan” (literally meaning the treasure for all flowers) in the Compendium of Materia Medica, and generally kept in virgin pollution-free forests. Since the Chinese honey bee is good at collecting nectar from scattered and various flora and takes a longer time to ferment its honey, the honey is considered more natural, green, and organic.

After the introduction of Western honey bees into China at the end of the 19th century, the number of Chinese honey bees decreased sharply. In 2006, the Chinese honey bee was included in the national protection list of livestock and poultry genetic resources of Ministry of Agriculture. Due to its unmatchable advantages in using scattered and sporadic honey-producing flora, strong collection capacity, high utilization rate, long periods of honey collection, strong adaptability, resistance to mites and diseases,and low consumption of feed, it is very suitable for settled farming in the mountainous areas of China. Consumers have a preference for its honey, whose price is several times that of Italian bee honey.

Crystal clear honey dripping from raw wax comb晶瑩剔透的蜂蜜從原蜜塊上滴落

中華小蜜蜂

中國境內主要有意大利蜜蜂與中華小蜜蜂兩種。意大利蜜蜂又名意蜂、西蜂，個頭大、產蜜能力強，一般追隨某種植物的花期移動放養，市場上絕大多數蜂蜜均是“意蜂蜜”。中華小蜜蜂又稱中蜂、土蜂，屬中國獨有蜜蜂品種，是以雜木樹為主的森林群落及傳統農作物的主要傳粉昆蟲，《本草綱目》中稱其為“百花丹”，一般在無污染的深山老林中不移動放養，善于采集種類多而零星分散的蜜源，釀蜜周期長，所產蜂蜜屬天然綠色有機食品。

19世紀末西方蜜蜂引進中國后,中蜂數量銳減。2006年，中華小蜜蜂被列入農業部國家級畜禽遺傳資源保護品種。由于中蜂有利用零星蜜源植物、采集力強、利用率較高、采蜜期長及適應性強、抗螨抗病能力強、消耗飼料少等外來蜂種無法比擬的優點，非常適合中國山區定點養殖。土蜂蜜受消費者偏愛，其售價是普通蜂蜜的數倍。