The rapid urbanization of Shanghai and the surrounding region has claimed vast areas of former farm land and the small patches of fields that remain cannot grow enough flowers to satisfy busy bees.

"Another reason the apiculture industry here is shrinking so fast is because some bee farmers are unwilling to accept physical hardship as they did before," he said. "If you were a bee, you would work till the last minute."

Bees are heroes to Gu who views himself as being like a bee - a careful, loyal and hard-working one but without a sting.

Unexpected career

Gu had not expected that he would become entangled with the problems of bee-keeping when the family sent him to Shanghai in 1946, but he was sure that being an apprentice in a wool store was much easier than in his village in the Nanhui District.

Firmly believing there are always new things to learn, Gu accumulated experience in accounting and management since his apprenticeship, both consciously and sub-consciously.

After liberation in 1949, he was transferred to Hengyuanxiang, a famous wool brand, to work as a store manager and later promoted to the Financial and Trade Office of Huangpu District which was the most prosperous commercial area in the city, or even in China.

Chen would never have had the chance to become a bee-keeper if he had not applied three times to return to his village in 1962 in answer to the call of the government which wanted officials of countryside origin to share in the common suffering of natural disasters by returning to the country.

"The monthly pay of 94 yuan (US$11) at that time was a big sum of money and I was not even included among those to be sent back," Gu said. "But I was a Party member and willing to live the way my country fellows were living."

Gu will never forget 1963 because it was from that time he began to discover his complex feelings about bees. Tragically, it was also in 1963 his four-year daughter was drowned in a lake.

"Her face has almost faded from my memory but her smile when I brought candies back home for her is always there," Gu said, with some moisture in his eyes.

The commune made up of several villages first assigned this talented farmer as the accountant for the honey factory which had 20 farmers and 100 hives of bees. Gu always shared his ideas drawn from books with his fellow bee keepers.

"Raising bees is a hard business which demands close care and hard work. Only two or three out of ten raisers can be called good hands," Gu said.

In 1995, Gu was appointed head of the honey factory thanks to his excellence and devotion to bee raising and he began his year-long travels, taking his men and bees to different places around the country in different seasons.

Hardships at work

"We have to chase the flowers and the moving is usually a magnificent scene when the railway station becomes a battlefield for us to load and unload the hives, bikes, tents, coal, rice and bowls into the train," Gu said. "We take almost everything needed for a living with us, trying to make the fieldwork comfortable."

"Comfortable" means luxurious for bee-keepers because they have to be stationed in fields of flowers which is usually far away from local people.

"Danger" was sometimes the proper word especially in Northeast China where Gu and his men encountered greedy bears who can smell honey even from miles away.

When Gu and his fellows raised bees in a forest in 1972, they could see, from their shed erected by the side of the road, a big bear who would come to pillage the hives along the other side of the road at night.

"The bear would come to feast upon our precious honey during the night, without any awareness of danger," Gu said, speaking with a clenched fist. "A soldier ran up and fired shots at it until it dropped the hive and ran off into the forest."

The bee-keepers did not sleep well that night because the soldier warned them to be on guard in case the bear came back for revenge. To their delight, the next morning, the bear's body was found in the bushes not far away.

In 1975, also in a forest in the Northeast China, a local hunter was invited to catch a bear with a net fastened with seven steel ropes. When farmers got up the next morning, the bear had exhausted itself to death in an effort to escape. Six ropes had been broken and small trees around had all been pulled down.

"We were told by locals that when you meet a bear, you should just ignore it," Gu said. "I don't know whether that advice is useful or not if you are really faced with a bear."

At least bears were rare. Rats and toads were also natural enemies of bees, while barren flowers were a disaster.

Profitable labour

Bee-keepers have to be able to taste much bitterness to get honey. As bees gather in hives in the evening they are very sensitive to temperature (warmth above 30 degrees is very dangerous to bees), so all the moving has to be done at night, even better in the rain.

Once, when they had moved hives onto a self-propelled rail car, it slid down slippery rails, wet from rain, and turned over with six farmers riding on it.

"We ran down the slope in search of our fellows," Gu recalled. "Five of them had been thrown off the train but one had been killed."

When Gu found the body under piles of hives, he could hardly move because he was covered by frightened bees which were stinging him in their anger at the crash.

"If I had not already been stung so many times before, I would have died as well," Gu said. "When I was stung on the hand the first time, my whole forearm was paralyzed for quite a long while."

After so many ups and downs, Gu survived to become a respected raiser of bees and in 1993, he was elected the head of a union set up by local bee-keepers wanting to join forces to win a better market position amid the hardening competition.

Now the revenue of the union has expanded several times over. The 15-minute bicycle ride every day to and from his office in Huinan Town of the Nanhui District has become the most enjoyable thing, as he can appreciate the moon in the distant evening sky and the chirping of birds among the trees.

Gu has also kept the habit of taking a long run every day to keep fit because he believes good health can prolong the present "golden time" when he can contribute most to the bee and honey business.

(Shanghai Star May 20, 2003)