Shandong province's honey sector boosts rural vitalization

A view of the beehives in the Yizhiyuan beekeeping farm. [Photo by Wang Ying for chinadaily.com.cn]

Located in the deep mountains of Yishan, Linqu county – in East China’s Shandong province – has a provincial-level Chinese honeybee protection zone.

There, more than 1,200 beekeepers are busy collecting and processing honey from various nectar-producing plants – such as acacias, jujubes, motherworts and vitex.

The Yizhiyuan beekeeping farm for Chinese honeybees is one of the leading enterprises in the county's honey industry. It occupies more than 30 mu (2 hectares) and has more than 500 beehives, driving the surrounding Chinese honeybee storage capacity to 2,000 boxes.

The county's bee storage capacity and honey production accounts for one-seventh of the province's – forming a complete supply chain including beekeeping, Chinese honeybee breeding, product research and development processing and pollination applications.

The county has more than 60 bee product processing enterprises and bee industry cooperatives. As a result, it has developed into the largest bee product processing and trading distribution center in Shandong.

"We will further expand the scale of beekeeping, strengthen our protection of resources, increase the number of technology promotions, expand marketing channels, continue to promote the integration and development of the bee tourism industry – and make the 'sweet industry' a pillar industry to help rural vitalization," said Wei Shujuan, director of the agriculture and rural bureau of Linqu county. (Edited by Fan Yuanyuan)