Image source: Image China
The car sped all the way to Yonghe Town, Fenggang County. The green-stained qianbei land is lined with winding road, with layers of mountains, lush forests, and wildflowers. The leaves are deep in the forest, and the flowers are fragrant, and I seem to hear the sound of "buzzing" coming out of the flowers in the forest.
It was the sound of bees. I came here following this voice. My colleague strongly recommended the honey of an old beekeeper here, and the vivid introduction made me curious. I asked for the address to go to.
On the side of the road, green trees cover several brick houses with rows of repairs, and boxes of bee barrels are placed around the houses, and small bees fly in and out from time to time. Ren Guangwen, who pushed the door out, was mentally strong, completely unlike an eighty-two-year-old man. Ren Guangwen listened to my intentions and smiled softly, "If you come a few days late, I will go out to catch bees." "Spring and summer honey is one hundred yuan a catty, autumn honey can be sold to one hundred and eighty yuan a catty, and every year it is booked early by regular customers in Chongqing and Guiyang."
"In the summer, there are more than 2,000 black oak flowers to pick, and when the autumn flowers bloom, the Fivefold Trees in Dangwan Village are dense, and the price of nectar is high." Speaking of the surrounding honey sources, Ren Guangwen is like a number of family treasures. Years of experience in bee catching has given him a good understanding of vegetation.
For more than ten years, Ren Guangwen has been circling around bees: breeding bees, releasing bees, transferring fields, cutting honey... The only means of travel is a tricycle commonly found in rural areas. The more than a hundred barrels of bees he raised would take two or three days to release completely. His eighty-year-old wife complained that he had raised too much, that his body could not be eaten, and that he was exhausted, but his hands and feet were sharply helping him.
He is old, he can't go too far, and throughout the year, yonghe town is the axis, surrounding nearby towns and villages. Wherever the flowers bloom, he rushes to wherever he goes. Spring rape flowers, summer catch the black oak flowers, autumn chase five times, osmanthus flowers... Like bees, people follow the fragrance of flowers, choose a source of honey, put down the hive, ask the local farmers to take care of it every day, and leave two or three pounds of sweet nectar as a reward when harvesting.
Uncover a bucket of beehives, which are densely packed with bees. "Check the bee spleen every day, once the new queen bee is born, you must divide the bees in time, otherwise, the old queen bee will lead a group of worker bees out of the hive and fly away, then the loss will be very large." The old man pointed out to me the mystery in the hive, and gently blew away the bees crawling around him with his mouth before closing the lid to prevent the lid from crushing them.
"I'll show you my new invention." Ren Guangwen's eyes showed a little pride. We walked into the backyard courtyard, weeds ankle-deep, and from time to time there were bees flying in and out. The old man took the initiative to explain: "The grass specially planted can shade the bees in the summer to cool down." "The black dog next to us ran in front of us for a while, and then was attracted by the butterflies that flew by and turned to the side." This is the black tiger, and it accompanies me when chasing bees. As soon as the car drove and shouted for the black tiger to go, it would obediently jump into the substation. When releasing bees, it can help me drive away some of the natural enemies of bees. "The mountain wind blows, and in the sweltering heat of Late Summer in August, it creates a sense of comfort.
Ren Guangwen proudly showed off a new technology he had only "invented" this year — a wooden three-tier bee barrel. The upper layer can be pushed open to see the internal situation; the second layer is used to collect honey, pushing the wire to pull out the board, and using a spoon to directly dig honey to eat; the third layer is bees, which can be pumped out to take care of the bees daily or in groups. "At the beginning of the year, the carpenter was asked to make eighty new barrels. As long as I can still work, I have to take care of this bee for a day. Ren Guangwen pointed to a piece of land in the distance and said: "This year, I still want to rent those two acres of land, plant grapes, bees rest and have shade, and the fruit is ripe and another income." ”
In 2007, a group of lost bees stopped at his house to build a nest. In order to retain these bees, in the spring of 2008, Ren Guangwen went to Sichuan to learn beekeeping techniques. He became acquainted with bees ever since. In the past, his family had many children, and for decades, Ren Guangwen raised silkworms, planted crops, worked small jobs, and brought a group of children to adulthood and suffered a lot. Unexpectedly, the elderly enjoyed the sweetness of life by relying on a group of unexpected bees. After beekeeping, Ren Guangwen used the computer to check the technology on the Internet, and all the experience was carefully recorded in the notebook, and in practice, he slowly explored a set of beekeeping methods. He sold thousands of barrels of bees, couldn't remember how many apprentices he taught, and there were people in all townships in the county who came to buy bees to learn technology. The news of beekeeping making money spread by word of mouth as everyone's income increased. Nowadays, beekeepers in Fenggang County are all over the townships, and the emerging honey industry has become a golden key for people to get rid of poverty and become well-off.
An Xian, a poor household in Dangwan Village, bought five barrels of bees, but the breeding technology could not keep up, and the bees "ran away from home" and watched the capital invested to be adrift. After knowing the news, Ren Guangwen rushed to carefully inform the key points of breeding, helped the bees to divide the boxes, and when he left, he sent an anxian copy of the beekeeping notes carefully copied over the years. Half a year later, With the help of Ren Guangwen, An Xian successfully divided twelve barrels of bees, and the income of honey alone was more than 30,000 yuan, allowing An Xian to taste the sweetness of getting rich by the development of characteristic industries.
Ren Guangwen led me into the house and sat down, and brought out half a cup of honey: "Drink, beekeepers, and entertain guests with honey." "The honey in the white porcelain cup emits a rich aroma. There were also a few old people in the room who came to chat, and each of them had honey water in front of them. When chatting, Ren Guangwen laughed freely from time to time, and his black and thin face was filled with sweet happiness.
Between the words, the sky is getting late, and the sunset reflects the green waves in the distance. The dancing bees remind me of a poem: Spring breeze and flowers, there is no empty day. The flowers are harvested and brewed into grain, and the warehouse is enriched. The busy farmers in the fields, like this bee, are diligent and earnest, brewing the honey of life.
People's Daily (08/10/2020)