This time the swarm was a bit fierce. If it had been 20 years ago, the agitated bees might have made the rosy face puffy, the eyes squinted into a slit, and the mouth bulge like a sausage, but now, she half-crouched by the hive to check the bees, letting them circle around their bare arms.
In the world of bees, the arachius felt safe.
In 2001, she was admitted from the mountains of Guizhou to Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, where bees are not only playmates under the roof of their hometown, but also scientific research objects that are placed under the academic framework and subject to rigorous scrutiny by scholars. The increasingly in-depth contact made Luo Qihua have a strong interest in bees, and she went all the way to the Ph.D. of the Institute of Honey Bee of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
In 2011, Luo Qihua refused the invitation of the director of the USDA Bee Institute at the time, refused the job opportunity of other research institutes, and stayed in the Miyun District Landscaping Bureau, 100 kilometers away from the main city of Beijing, to participate in the establishment of the bee industry management station, and later became the station manager.
The bee industry management station mainly serves beekeepers and promotes new technologies and varieties of the bee industry. In the past 10 years, under the cultivation of Luo Qihua, the bee industry in Miyun District has changed its initially scattered and weak state, and has become a "golden signboard" to improve the local ecology and drive farmers to increase income.
On April 27 this year, 39-year-old Luo Qihua was awarded the "National May Day Labor Medal", and on June 17, she was named an outstanding communist party member in Beijing. "I don't regret staying." Luo Qihua said, "The development of the bee industry is my career, a direction that I pursue tirelessly. ”
In Shangyu Village, Miyun District, Beijing, Luo Qihua inspects bee species at a bee farm. Beijing News reporter Zheng Xinqia photographed
Bee spirit
The 57-year-old beekeeper Wang Chunhua remembered her the first time she saw The Luoqihua — a small person, who said one sentence after another, "There is no shelf at all." She was willing to call Luo Qihua "sister" and "little Luo", although more people called her "Dr. Luo".
Dr. Luo is currently the only cadre of miyun landscaping bureau to have obtained a doctorate.
She often gives beekeeping lectures for beekeepers, and this year, luo qihua also did an online live broadcast because of the epidemic. Whenever a lecture is given, Wang Chunhua, her husband and son will go out of their way to listen, "We can all understand it, and when we come back, we will discuss with each other again, and we can learn a lot of new knowledge." ”
Luo Qihua is also a regular visitor to Wang Chunhua's family. Every time she visited, Luo Qihua would first check the hundreds of boxes of bees outside the house, and without gloves, she lifted the beehive lid, pulled out one of the bee-covered bee frames, and reached out to pinch one to check it out. After 20 years of dealing with bees, the aggressiveness of the bee needle is only painful.
More often than not, she was just busy with the rosy flower who couldn't take care of anything.
The phones rang one after the other. The daily affairs of beekeepers, the promotion of beekeeping technology, the inspection and guidance of beekeepers in the countryside, the acceptance of beekeepers' complaints, the training of beekeepers... Even sitting across from The Roachiana, it was difficult to talk to her for a few minutes in its entirety.
Gao Limei had just been working at the bee management station for a year, but seeing that Luo Qihua was always working overtime, she asked more than once: Can this small body withstand it? Luo Qihua always replied: "No way, you can't work a lot, in fact, it's all the same." ”
At the busiest time, Luo Qihua forgot his son, who had just entered the first grade, at the school gate. She had a meeting in the city that afternoon to discuss it, and it was nearly 6 p.m. that she remembered that she should have picked up the child 40 minutes earlier. There was heavy snow outside the house, the class teacher received a call and hurried to check, but did not find the child's figure, Luo Qihua hurriedly called the sick father-in-law, and finally found his son curled up in a corner of the school yard hiding in the snow.
"I'm so sorry for him." Luo Qihua lowered her head and rubbed her fingers, her husband worked in the city, and the task of picking up and dropping off the children could only be entrusted to Luo Qihua, but she often needed to ask other parents to help take care of it. "Children are important, families are important." Luo Qihua could not deceive herself, for a while she thought about simply resigning from the section chief, "To be my good mother, but a person's pursuit and sense of value are also very important." ”
In order to build a breeding base, she can run to the Cuifeng Mountain Forest Farm at least two or three times a week, sometimes by bus, sometimes by trampoline, and in the early evening of autumn, Luo Qihua will come out of the deep ravine in the dark of night; in order to negotiate cooperation, she can also take a 19-hour long-distance train to Jilin when she is 8 months pregnant.
Roachia calls it the bee spirit—hard work and unity of purpose.
A bee farm in Shangyu Village, Miyun District, Beijing. Beijing News reporter Zheng Xinqia photographed
Stay in Miyun
Rochelle had other opportunities.
In May 2011, Jeff Pettis, then director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bee Institute, came to a laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to listen to Roberta's presentations on his papers and experiments.
The little bee mite, a cruel disease that parasitizes bee larvae and pupae, is an unpopular research direction, which is the main topic of Roachia and one of the main reasons for Jeff's trip. "He wanted me to go to the United States to do his postdoctoral studies and collaborate on the study of the little bee mite." Luo Qihua said that there are no small bee mites in the United States, and Jeff is willing to let her stay in China to do experiments, and the funding is borne by him.
"I'm not going." Luo Qihua refused very crisply, "I am 29 years old, I want to start a family first." Jeff was surprised: "You can bring your boyfriend with you, and we can solve his employment through other channels." Luo Qihua still refused.
"In fact, the main reason is that although scientific research is tall, it is not grounded." Luo Qihua explained that many scientific research results are very useful, but in fact, no one uses them, or they can't use them and don't know how to use them. She has done a lot of research on the prevention and treatment of diseases, but farmers have no channels to know that if they can promote it at the grassroots level, they can really solve the problem of the last mile of scientific and technological promotion.
Rejecting the United States, "staying in Miyun" is still not in The scope of Luo Qihua's consideration.
The scarcity of talent in the bee industry makes the upcoming graduates of Arachius particularly sought-after. In addition to the United States, agricultural colleges around the world have also handed olive branches to Luo Qihua – schools in her hometown of Guizhou have even promised her a new house of more than 80 square meters, including the Miyun Ecological Construction and Development Research Center, which is participating in the bid for the International Beekeeping Conference.
"Let's go back to Guizhou." It was The hardest week for Roach, and she had to make a choice.
She knew that Miyun was very good, and when she was a doctorate, Luo Qihua went to Miyun for the first time, and along the way the branches stretched, and there was a river passing through the city, and the bees were not bad. Due to the bid for the International Beekeeping Congress, Luo Qihua had several opportunities to enter the office of the Miyun County Government at that time, but these attractions were not strong enough compared to Luo Qihua's determination to go home.
The night before he was ready to leave Beijing, Luo Qihua did not fall asleep in the dormitory. Everything was packed and ready to leave at dawn.
At 11 o'clock in the middle of the night, Luo Qihua sent a text message to Zhou Guangwen, then director of the Miyun Ecological Construction and Development Research Center who tried his best to keep himself. At more than 2 o'clock in the morning, she actually received a reply from Zhou Guangwen: "We have arrived downstairs in your dormitory, moved the quilt for you, and after dawn we will go upstairs to take your quilt away." ”
At this time, Zhou Guangwen was in the commercial car downstairs of the dormitory, and he and the driver slept in the car for a night. Wang Haichen, then the county magistrate of Miyun County, also called to persuade her to reconsider.
"I was touched by their sincerity." Luo Qihua decided "impulsively" in this way, and the commercial vehicle pulled her luggage directly to Miyun. "Ready to go, right?" In the car, Roachia received a text message from her then-boyfriend and now-husband: he didn't know it at the time, and Roberta changed her choice.
In Shangyu Village, Miyun District, Beijing, Luo Qihua, director of the bee industry management station of the Miyun District Greening Bureau. Beijing News reporter Zheng Xinqia photographed
"The first person to eat crab"
If Luo Qihua is willing, she can always stay at the Miyun Ecological Construction development research center, where there are better opportunities for promotion.
In 2011, after the bid for the International Beekeeping Conference, Zhou Guangwen suggested that Luo Qihua temporarily abandon the bee industry and switch to ecology. This made Luo Qihua feel "like hanging in the air", and after two months of drying, she decided to leave.
"I've been studying bees since I was an undergraduate, and I feel guilty not to do this." Luo Qihua found Jiang Xuefu, who was the deputy county magistrate of Miyun County at the time: "You let me come to do the bee industry, and I want to do work related to my profession." ”
It was a "silly" decision – to abandon a simpler path and go to a new department that had no plans yet, but took the risk. With the opposition of her friends and the promise of her superiors to set up a bee management station, she moved from the government compound to the Landscaping Bureau.
Roachhua's new office is diagonally opposite the toilet on the second floor of the Landscaping Bureau, a cottage of about 10 square meters. During the day, Luo Qihua sat at the only table, pondering the Miyun bee industry plan for the next ten years. At night, it becomes the lounge of the bureau driver.
In order to understand the situation in miyun, Luo Qihua consulted a large number of materials, went to the countryside to investigate, and the road from the urban area to the village was far away, and she had to rub the cars of other departments. As an unpopular industry, the bee industry is naturally difficult to get financial support, so Luo Qihua and his colleague Ma Dajie pulled the financial supervisor to lead the inspection, science popularization, and talk about their planning.
It was not until October 2012 that the bee industry management station was officially approved. In the middle seven or eight months, no one told her what to do and how to do it. At that time, the Miyun bee industry was not yet on a large scale, "Since there is nothing here, I will be the first person to eat crabs." ”
After the approval of the bee industry management station, Luo Qihua and colleagues finally got a office of their own, since 2012, the bees through pollination to promote ecological development has also attracted attention, Miyun bee industry has also been favored by support policies, financial investment funds slowly from the beginning of 200,000, 300,000 to more than 20 million yuan.
During this period, the scale of beekeeping in Miyun District has grown from 47,000 bee colonies and 662 beekeepers in 2011 to 123,500 bee colonies in 2021, 2,145 beekeepers, 2 bee product companies, 26 beekeeping professional cooperatives, and nearly 5,000 employees.
The bee industry has become a characteristic industry, a symbol industry and a rich people's industry in Miyun, and Luo Qihua's "ten-year plan" is gradually becoming a reality.
In Shangyu Village, Miyun District, Beijing, a bee collects honey. Beijing News reporter Zheng Xinqia photographed
Serving beekeepers
Gao Limei felt that Luo Qihua could drive the Miyun bee industry without her "sense of purpose": "The starting point of everything she did was to serve the beekeepers - how to be good for the beekeepers and how to realize the interests of the beekeepers, she would always think from the standpoint of the beekeepers first." ”
In 2018, beekeeper Liu Bo (pseudonym) repeatedly approached Luo Qihua and asked how to get rich by beekeeping.
Liu Bo served a prison sentence. In the meantime, he happened to read an article about arbor in a beekeeping magazine, and since then he has had the idea of making money by beekeeping, "When I go out, the first thing I do is to go to rachel and let her teach me how to keep bees." ”
After returning to Miyun, Liu Bo applied to the local town government for subsidies, "The town government called us and said that he wanted to keep bees, can you give him some bees." Luo Qihua learned that he was a low-income household and gave him a herd of 20,000 bees for a total of 30 swarms. Because there was no technology and no one to help, Liu Bo only earned a few thousand yuan in the first two years, and in the third year, he encountered a drought, and the compensation of beekeeping insurance did not meet expectations.
Luo Qihua did not perfunctory, about Liu Bo to the office to chat, "he talked to me about his family background, originally thought that beekeeping can get rich, but did not expect that there is a process of technology accumulation, he feels that everyone looks down on him, so he wants to make money and get a sense of identity." ”
She analyzed the reasons why Liu Bo failed to make money, and gave Liu Bo an idea: Since you can't keep bees now, why not pollinate? Bee colonies are sold to farmers who plant greenhouses and supporting services are provided.
Slowly, Liu Bo figured out the doorway, the business from Beijing to the whole country, with the help of the government, Liu Bo built two more bee farms, married and built a house.
Also in 2018, Rosa began to promote the replacement of double-box beehives with multi-box beehives to beekeepers.
Multi-box beehives are mainly raised in strong groups, which have more bees than traditional methods, and have a large space for breeding and honey storage. The amount of honey collected is about double that of traditional methods. The strong flock breeding is not only the amount of honey, but also the production of royal jelly, propolis, beeswax, and bee venom will increase.
As a new beekeeper, Wang Chunhua's son, Liu Jinliang, expressed a willingness to try, although his parents were reluctant to take out the bee colony to take the risk. "A swarm of bees can earn about 1,000 yuan a year, and if it fails, it is a wasted loss." Liu Jinliang knew the consequences, but still persuaded his father to get a swarm of bees.
In the first year of the attempt, Liu Jinliang was unsuccessful, and by the third year, Liu Jinliang's bee colony size had reached more than 100 boxes. In order to let more people accept this model, Luo Qihua led the establishment of 10 village collective bee factories, with Liu Jinliang and other new beekeepers as technical leaders and demonstrators, and used examples to promote new technologies.
Doing practical things for beekeepers has always been a rarity: "You can only really solve the problem if you stand in their position." ”
"I am the daughter of a farmer"
It can transform the results of advanced scientific research into visible and tangible technologies, and drive beekeepers to become rich, and Luo Qihua has a great sense of achievement.
"Probably because I'm from the countryside, I'm the daughter of a farmer." Luo Qihua mentioned more than once that although she was born in 1982, the economic conditions in the mountains were still difficult when she was a child, and children of different grades in the school were mixed in a class, and the classroom houses where classes were held did not even have a roof.
Children from slightly wealthier families have the opportunity to go to school in the city, but it is not the turn of the arifoli. Her two older brothers each have 2 cows, and Luo Qihua has 4 pigs so that they can pay for the tuition after they are sold.
In the third grade, Luo Qihua enviously told his father: "I also want to go to school in the city." The father agreed, but only if the rhodgeus had to cut 40 pounds of pig grass a day to ensure that the four pigs could not go hungry. Every day before dawn, Luo Qihua followed her two brothers to the city, sometimes at noon can only eat bud rice or bake a sweet potato, after 4 p.m., she has to walk another hour of mountain road home to cut pig grass, winter night comes early, she has to trot all the way home, throw the bag away, and then go out with a back basket and a sickle to cut pig grass.
4 pigs grew up healthily, And Roachia was also admitted to the provincial key high school, and his parents borrowed money for Roachia to be admitted to college. In college, He spent his time on work, cleaning the Youth League Committee's office and toilets, or setting up stalls to sell honey. In her junior year, she sent home a 4,000 yuan national scholarship and asked her parents to buy a TV set.
"I cherish my life now." Roachia doesn't ask for too much. "A lot of people say I'm stupid and say why I stayed in Miyun to do this, but I'm actually very content." This reminds her of the writer Lu Yao's "Life", leaving the land and returning to the land.
Luo Qihua liked to read, which caused her to briefly withdraw from her busyness. Sometimes on weekends, she would make a point of going to the office to sit down. She had seriously considered resigning, but thought about it for a moment: "These are the things I brought out with me, and I can't leave." ”
Batches of talents came and went, and came and went, and only the "Dr. Bee" Luo Qihua was still there.
Beijing News reporter Zuo Lin
Edited by Zuo Yanyan
Proofread by Wu Xingfa