keep bees

Artificial beekeeping in China started very early. According to the Biography of Gao Shi in Huangfu Mi, Jin, during the Yan Xi period of the Eastern Han Dynasty (158-167), there was a hermit named Jiang Qi, who was invited by Hanyang Taishou Qiaoxuan to be an official. He refused and fell ill under the pretence. Later, when Jiang Qi's mother died of illness, he simply gave his land to his brother Jiang Cen and lived in seclusion in the mountains, raising pigs and keeping bees for a living. Many people came to ask him about the technology of beekeeping, and there were as many as 300 beekeepers at one time. It can be seen that beekeeping was very developed in the Han Dynasty. Beekeeping is a traditional sideline of Cixi farmers. It is recorded in the "Yuyao County Records" of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty: "Silkworms and bees are both beneficial to the people." The development of modern apiculture in Cixi began in the late 1950s. At that time, Cixi introduced Italian bees from other places and began to use live beehives to keep bees. By 1967, there were 15,000 bees in Cixi. Since the 1980s, the apiculture in Cixi has sprung up and developed rapidly. In 1987, there were 3,580 beekeepers in the city, with more than 10,000 employees and nearly 200,000 beekeepers, and the output value of bee products reached 60 million yuan. Among them, Jiantang Niujiaojian Village is a well-known "beekeeping village" in China, with 7,700 beekeepers in the village, with an output value of 1.5 million yuan, which is 1.3 times higher than the total agricultural output value. The method of raising bees is mainly by large-scale rotation. The so-called large-scale rotation refers to the method of releasing bees that flows around the country and pursues flowers and honey. It can widely use honey sources all over the country, with a long production cycle and high yield. In order to win a good harvest in honey production, farmers in Cixi often spend the whole year away with their families, camping in the wind, eating and sleeping, and staying at home all over the world, with footprints as far away as Xinjiang, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places, breeding, producing and wintering in the spring. A large number of bees are cultivated, which makes the output of honey, royal jelly, beeswax, pollen and other bee products increase year by year. Cixi has an annual output of more than 10,000 tons of honey and more than 100 tons of royal jelly. In order to digest honey resources locally, Cixi also established a honey processing enterprise, and the made royal jelly honey, pollen honey, royal jelly wine and "China bee treasure" were sold to Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places and Southeast Asian countries. From 1980 to 1991, the output value of Cixi's bee industry ranked first in the country for 11 consecutive years, and the Ministry of Agriculture designated Cixi as the national base of high-quality bee products.
Reprinted with attribution： https://cnlocality.com/(Chinese Specialty Products)