Keeping poisonous bees in the family of mysterious "bee hunters" has become a non-legacy project.

"three earth bees can kill a cow, and a nest of wasps can sting a man." Even if the object is so dangerous, it can not stop the Sichuan Lisu people from looking for wasps. According to the local bee hunter, the Lisu people do not have any protective measures to catch wild bees, and sometimes they do not even wear a simple headgear, just a pair of rubber gloves, relying on experience and wisdom. According to the ancient method, they found the beehive, took it down and brought it home to raise it, and the harvested pupae were either eaten or sold. This year, this skill was also rated as the intangible cultural heritage of Liangshan Prefecture.

In Shanmugou Village, Nanshan Lisu Township, Dechang County, Liangshan Prefecture, there is a group of mysterious "people chasing bees". They toyed with the poisonous bees between applause, skillfully tied white strips of paper or chicken feathers with their hair, and put them around the waist of wild bees, so as to travel for several kilometers or even dozens of kilometers, climb treetops of more than ten or twenty meters, take down the wild beehive and bring it home to raise, harvest bee pupae or eat or sell.

The local custom of keeping wild bees has a history of three to four hundred years. On July 20, at the exhibition and training meeting of the "intangible heritage" of the Lisu people in Dechang, this mysterious process of beekeeping was first displayed in front of the vast number of tourists, stunning the world. This year, in this village of more than 100 households, the number of wild bees farmed exceeded 1000 nests for the first time, and nearly 20 species of poisonous bees were farmed. This skill has also been rated as the intangible cultural heritage of Liangshan Prefecture.

There are nearly 20 poisonous bee species in thousands of nests of wild bees in the village.

Shanmugou Village is located in the mountains 2000 meters above sea level, surrounded by verdant pine forests, where 107 Lisu families live. When I walked into this small mountain village, I saw a hornet's nest hanging in front and behind the house, as small as fists and as big as a basin, and wasps flew back and forth to form a unique landscape.

Now, it is the season for the first batch of bee pupae to be harvested. On July 20, Li Mingsong, a 52-year-old villager, took a simple pocket hood and rubber gloves and walked into the fruit grove in front of the house and found a wasp hive the size of a washbasin, ready to pick up the beehive. When he was not completely close, hundreds of horses swarmed out and attacked wantonly.

In the face of these poisonous horse peaks, Li Mingsong, fearless, quickly picked up a knife and cut the beehive in half, took the hive full of bee pupae, and left the queen bee. "as long as the queen bee does not run, they will continue to build nests, lay eggs and harvest three times a year." Li Mingsong told Chengdu Business Daily that he has kept horsebees for 37 years and has raised more than 100 hornet hives under the eaves or in orchards this year, making him the largest professional beekeeper in the village.

According to Luo Xiaoming, party committee secretary of Lisu Township in Nanshan, Dechang County, Shanmugou Village has always had a tradition of keeping wild bees and has a history of three to four hundred years. More than 10 years ago, there were very few wild bees here, but in recent years the number has soared and multiplied. This year, for the first time, thousands of wild beehives have been raised in the village, and basic households are raising them.

Skillfully use hair to "mark" to chase dozens of kilometers to find a beehive

It is called breeding, which actually moves the wild bees' hives in the mountains to the vicinity, so that the wild bees can reproduce in the hives. "because wild bees cannot breed artificially, they can only find beehives from the wild and transplant them back to raise them." Li Mingsong said that because the beehive could not reproduce every other year, local bee hunters went out to look for bees in March and April of the following year.

Looking for wild bees, the local Lisu people have a strange method. Zhang Zhengshun, a bee hunter, demonstrated the whole process of attracting bees to the reporter of Chengdu Business Daily. "usually catch one or two grasshoppers or other insects or meat and attach them to a thin stick as bait." Zhang Zhengshun found a small stick with a piece of pork on it and put it next to the fruit tree by the side of the road.

Soon, a wasp came and began to bite. "although the wasp is fierce, it is also stupid." Zhang Zhengshun said with a smile, "they are typical regardless of the head and the tail." Then, Zhang Zhengshun pulled off a few centimeters of hair, skillfully tied a knot at one end, and tied a small white note, film or chicken feather at the other end.

"tie a tail to the wasp and use it as a reference for tracking, and you can find the beehive." Seeing the wasp only eating and moving meat, Zhang Zhengshun saw the right time and put the hair knot on the wasp's waist. Wasps don't sting at this time. When the wasp gnawed off the meat, it picked it up and flew home. At this time, Zhang Zhengshun followed the wasp in pursuit.

Li Zhengrong, a village branch secretary standing at the scene, said that due to the capture of prey, the flexibility and flight speed of wild bees were much slower, and the bee catchers chased after the white reference. Usually, bee hunters in the village chase a few kilometers near and dozens of kilometers away. Many wild beehives are on treetops, and local bee catchers can climb the mountain as easily as monkeys and remove the hives from the trees, so they are also called "treetop flying men".

Not afraid of being stung by poisonous bees, beekeeping has become a non-heritage of Liangshan Prefecture.

There has been a saying among Lisu people since ancient times: "three earth bees can kill a cow and a nest of wasps can sting a person." Even if the object is so dangerous, it can not stop the Lisu people from looking for wasps. According to the local bee hunter, the Lisu people do not have any protective measures to catch wild bees, and sometimes they do not even wear a simple headgear, just a pair of rubber gloves, relying on experience and wisdom.

"is there no danger?" Zhang Zhengshun smiled and said, "as long as you don't provoke it, wasps will not take the initiative to attack people." Every family here has kept bees, and no one is afraid of them. " Even so, these bee hunters are often stung by wasps. Li Mingsong raised his sleeve and a scar on his arm was clearly seen. He was stung by a finger-sized tuqin bee. This kind of wild bee is very poisonous. "it feels very common to be stung by wild bees more than 10 times a year," he said with a smile. "just put on some medicinal wine. It'll be all right in a few days."

"it's common for bee hunters here to feel stung as if they have antibodies." According to Li Zhengrong, a village cadre, Lisu people generally do not take any measures to treat them after they are stung, allowing them to reduce swelling. Sometimes with self-made medicinal wine, kimchi water, cool oil and other external use, it can be recovered in a few days.

Luo Xiaoming, secretary of the township party committee, said that he had served in the village for more than 10 years, and there had never been a single case of wild bee stings in the village, let alone death. Today, raising wild bees has become a way to get rich in Shanmugou village, with an annual income of hundreds of thousands of yuan. "according to the price of 50 to 100 yuan per jin this year, the most households can sell for tens of thousands of yuan." At the same time, there are local bee hunters to Chengdu, Deyang, Ziyang and other places to help people pick up hornet bags, to obtain a certain amount of economic income.

Recently, the custom of raising wild bees by the Lisu people in Dechang has become the intangible cultural heritage of Liangshan Prefecture. They said that they would retain the tradition and continue to go up the mountain to raise wild bees.