Zhou Chengwei and his sweet career

From an "otaku" to the director of a cooperative with an annual output value of more than 7 million yuan.

From knowing nothing about bees to well-known local beekeeping experts.

From learning to master the nutritional hybridization of honeybees, to creating the method of "one spleen reproduction" and harmless induction to control cotton insects.

Zhou Chengwei, a graduate of Sichuan Agricultural University in 2014, is the chairman of Ya'an multi-win bee breeding cooperative and the person in charge of honey-collecting town. In 2016, the cooperative he founded produced more than 100 tons of honey annually and generated more than 7 million income, increasing the average income of 102 cooperative farmers by more than 30,000 yuan.

Find the right direction to start a sweet career

"play games, watch movies, don't eat in the morning, take out at noon, take out in the evening." When he first entered college, Zhou Chengwei's life was simple and boring. "knowing that this state was very bad, but at that time there was no direction and there was no way to make much change, so he seemed to be wayward."

In June 2013, Zhou Chengwei decided to change that. "the original choice of agriculture is to start a business, so we must do something!" So Zhou Chengwei told his roommate Wu Xiong his idea of starting his own business, "Let's keep bees!" After getting the support of Wu Xiong, Zhou Chengwei found Yang Ming, a teacher in the academy. After some exchanges, the matter of beekeeping was so settled!

Zhou Chengwei began to raise the first batch of bees by digging, piling and building sheds on the farm. Looking after the bees, handing out flyers and selling honey every day, a simple and fulfilling life begins.

The choice of beekeeping to start a business was Zhou Chengwei's idea after learning in class that beekeeping costs were low, returns were quick, and market changes had little impact on him. Two months of beekeeping experience made him realize that beekeeping investment was small and promising, and bolder ideas emerged.

On January 16, 2014, a multi-win bee breeding professional cooperative was established in Xiaba Village, Duoying Town, Yucheng District, Ya'an City.

Independent innovation and R & D core technology

The first problem facing the establishment of cooperatives is site selection. Large colonies need to go out to chase flowers and honey, but after all, the base needs some bees for bee farmers to communicate and learn, and Chinese bees are best bred on a fixed point, so site selection is particularly important. The surrounding air and water quality should be good, and there should be uninterrupted honey plants. Running all over Yucheng District and surrounding counties, Zhou Chengwei finally chose Xiaba Village, Duoying Town, which is the Tibetan tea village in Ya'an.

"the beehive is easily damaged by cotton worms, which has always been a headache for bee farmers, and there is basically nothing we can do about it." On the other hand, Zhou Chengwei has his own unique method. He entrusts pharmaceutical companies to make a "hotbed" suitable for cotton worms to survive, which is placed at the bottom of the hive. "with the hotbed, it won't harm the hive, but all I have to do is clean the hotbed and the cotton worms that make my home on it." Zhou Chengwei introduced his gadget with satisfaction. "this physical solution has no chemical effect on bees, and it works well from the point of view of cleaning up cotton worms."

Winter is not only the period of bee breeding, but also the bottleneck period of bee breeding. In general, the survival rate of honeybees is very low, and only one spleen can survive. This is a small problem for Zhou Chengwei, who has a professional background in aquaculture. His self-created "one spleen breeding method" has solved this problem very well. Under the same conditions, the "one spleen reproduction method" can ensure the survival of at least 9-10 spleen.

Breeding excellent to increase Honey yield

It has solved the problem of cotton worms and winter breeding, and how to increase honey production has become a new problem of Zhou Chengwei. Zhou Chengwei first locked up the queen bee to prevent overreproduction, and then thought of the hybrid advantages he learned at school. But his Chinese honeybee (native bee) and Italian bee (Italian bee) cannot be crossed directly. So he thought of nutritional hybridization. he used royal jelly made from different workers of Italian bees to feed the larvae of Chinese honeybees to achieve nutritional hybridization. Sure enough, the honey yield has been significantly increased. "We have only heard of nutritional hybridization before, but we have figured it out by ourselves. As far as I know, no one in Sichuan has done it yet." Zhou Chengwei said proudly.

In addition, Zhou Chengwei also went to Yunnan, Hainan, Zhejiang, Gansu and other places to carry out on-the-spot investigation and acquisition of queen bees, which were used to cross directly with soil bees, and the hybrid high-quality bees allowed farmers in cooperatives to expand production.

Integrate into Bee Farmer Xiao Zhouchuan, Big Brother.

In order to expand the scale of breeding, Zhou Chengwei decided to teach beekeeping techniques and provide excellent queen bees for bee farmers free of charge. First guarantee the purchase of honey, and then make a second rebate at the end of the year; in addition, it also strives for government beekeeping subsidies and beekeeping certificates for bee farmers, which greatly increases the enthusiasm of beekeepers and expands the scale of beekeeping rapidly.

Looking back on the early days of the establishment of the cooperative, many bee farmers did not trust the young man who had just graduated, and they were "hiding it" if they had good experience in beekeeping, and they were reluctant to say any more. Zhou Chengwei had to go out to visit them every day. When communicating with them and when he was busy with farmers, Zhou Chengwei took the initiative to help bee farmers. Over time, everyone recognized him as well as the co-operative.

Nowadays, with the continuous development of beekeeping, Zhou Chengwei has registered his trademark "Honey Town". Zhou Chengwei has also changed from what everyone calls "Xiao Zhou" to "Big Brother." Zhou Chengwei said: "this is everyone's affirmation of my work."

Honey with QR code, food safety can be seen.

Next month, the cooperative will begin to adopt the pre-purchase mode, with direct docking with customers, the situation of the whole live broadcast base, as well as the process of honey collection and packaging, recording all production information of honey. "customers only need to scan the QR code on the package to know the whole honey production process."

Zhou Chengwei said that last year, the "honey-gathering town" participated in the second "made in China" Qatar exhibition, and recently another express delivery company took the initiative to seek cooperation.

"hard work may not necessarily yield results, but if you do not believe in yourself, then there is no value for hard work." When it comes to the future, Zhou Chengwei's face is a little more firm.