Beetles, ordinary darlings of nature that can no longer be ordinary, can also play a different world.
Huangjiashe Village, Chongtou Town, Yunhe County, adjacent to the "Yunhe Terraces" scenic spot, is nearly 1,000 meters above sea level. It had just rained, and the car was driving on the winding road, as if passing through the clouds.
Born in 1980, Liu Haidong, who is 12 years older than Huang Sai, is an insect friend and a business partner, and has built an insect club in Huangjiashe Village, hundreds of kilometers away from Wenzhou, using his idle farmhouse. So far, they have found 17 species of beetles in the surrounding mountains.
"There are adults, there are larvae, and there are pupae." Huang Sai opened a box and took a huge euphorbia worm and put it on the back of his hand. "This is just the Lakdar flower golden turtle, this is the Runeford deep mountain spade, that is the Polyphonos flower golden turtle..." He told reporters about the species and habits of different insects, and because the ecological environment of this small mountain village at an altitude of 1,000 meters is particularly good, the beetles grow particularly well. The Worm Society now has 138 species of beetles, with more than 10,000 live animals.
"As far as Haidong and I know, there is no beetle breeding house in China that surpasses ours in terms of species and number." Huang Sai confidently introduced.
Don't look at the small scale of the insect society now, but on the road of large-scale breeding, they have also experienced bumps. "From the beginning of indoor farming in July 2014 to the beginning of this year, due to the failure of food development, at least 3,000 adult worms died, and more than 360 ghost spade worms died because they did not understand their habits."
Suitable food is the core of breeding, if you do not have the technology to prepare food and rely on foreign imports, it is simply impossible to meet the scale of breeding in terms of funds.
The larvae mainly eat fermented wood chips and fungal bottles. Huang Sai told reporters that beetle feeding has little ecological impact because they ingest wood chips and agar, while the eggs and larvae they lay live in fertile humus or decaying wood, which does not cause excess burden on the food chain.
And artificial breeding does not have to worry too much, because beetles in China are very few protected species, only a few yangcai long-armed golden turtles and other species, the remaining hundreds of species can be used by enthusiasts to breed and play.
"I didn't finish my sophomore year of high school to raise beetles, and I'm sure that's what I want to do." Huang Sai spoke very calmly and sincerely.
Before dropping out of high school, Huang Sai had nearly 40 varieties of beetles in his home. Coming to Yunhe from Wenzhou with the "beetle dream", Huang Sai said that he was glad to have made this choice, the air he breathed and the water he drank here every day were sweet, and the beetles also radiated luster. After they posted pictures of the worm society on the Internet, the good environment here also attracted many insect friends from other places.
"We are still in the growth period, and after 3 years, we want to expand the scale of breeding, use the good ecological environment and popularity of clouds and terraces, take the route of tourism + popular science viewing, and build a beetle hall, with 500 varieties." Liu Haidong said.
There are more than 2,400 species of ornamental beetles worldwide, and the scale of 500 species of beetles means that one-fifth of the world's beetle species can be found in the cloud and this deep mountain insect society.
Where there is a sacrifice, there is a gain. Although Huang Sai did not finish high school, he also broke out of his own world.
This article is published with the permission of the Department of Business, slightly edited and modified, the copyright belongs to the author, and the content only represents the author's independent views. [ Pay attention to the entrepreneur's public account (id: chuangyejia), read 7,000 kinds of money-making businesses in China ]