Don't believe me? Try raising their monthly salary to the level of civil servants and see what happens.
However, all of this will have to wait until he is elected village chief before he can proceed gradually.
Right now, the most important thing is still harvesting the spring honey...
Last year, many families in Langshan Village followed their lead in beekeeping. Whether this business will allow the villagers to make money depends on this batch of spring honey.
He wasn't worried about the honey source on the mountain rock; his main concern was that many first-time beekeepers, lacking experience, would put in beehives and then neglect them, resulting in empty hives and causing Jiang Xiaoman to be blamed by others.
After all, it was Jiang Xiaoman who encouraged everyone to start beekeeping in the first place.
"Don't be afraid! If they really have empty beehives, that'll teach them a lesson! Don't think beekeeping is so easy, that you can just throw your beehives into the mountains and ignore them?"
"Let them suffer a loss first. After this batch of spring honey has been harvested, Brother Yan, why don't you open a training class in the village? You'll have a ready-made negative example!" Jiang Xiaoman chuckled.
As long as no one sabotages or undermines him in the shadows, he is confident that he can overcome any difficulties he encounters!
...
Since Shan Yan decided to run for the new village chief, good news has been coming one after another.
The next afternoon, Jiang Xiaoman was having a meeting with Shan Yan and the others to discuss how much honey to harvest each day and how much of the honey Jiang Xiaoman and Jiang Yu would each take to sell, when she received a call from Sun Zheyuan, a poverty alleviation cadre in the town.
"Xiaoman, good news! Your beekeeping cooperative's special poverty alleviation and entrepreneurship fund has been approved!"
"However, this is inside information I got from someone else. The official subsidy will probably have to wait until the public announcement period is over. A total of 50,000 yuan in special subsidies were applied for, which includes office space and staff salaries. In the future, your cooperative can also pay salaries and social security for its staff!"
That's really great news!
Jiang Xiaoman quickly called Shan Yan.
Putting aside wages for now, he felt that Shanyan and the others should start paying their individual social security contributions first.
Although the rural pension insurance premiums are low, the pension will also be low in the future. I heard it's only a little over 100 yuan a month. What can that buy?
“Brother Yan, I think it would be best if you, Brother Xiaoyu, and Ah Hu Qingshan could all register under our cooperative and start paying social security and housing provident fund.”
"If Shancha and the others want to study in the county town in the future, you will definitely need to buy a house there. With the housing provident fund, you can save a lot of money on the loan."
"Moreover, although the employee pension insurance premiums are higher than the rural pension insurance premiums, the retirement pension is also higher! I started paying social security for myself after graduating from university. The longer you pay into this and the more balance you have in your account, the higher your pension will be in the future."
“I did the math. Even if I only pay the minimum contribution, I can still get more than two thousand yuan a month when I retire. In our rural area, two thousand yuan a month is enough to live quite well.”
"More than two thousand a month? That's really pretty good." Shan Yan also knew that people who work in the city are paid social security, and their pensions are said to be much higher than those in the countryside. Moreover, he was going to take his apprentices to harvest honey from door to door.
In that case, Ah Hu and the others will be considered employees of the cooperative, and it is only right that we pay their social insurance and housing fund contributions.
Upon hearing that Jiang Xiaoman's beekeeping cooperative was about to start harvesting honey, Sun Zheyuan came over the next day with his camera and the town's publicity officer.
He was there to follow up on the progress of the poverty alleviation project, while the publicity officer was there to conduct interviews and write articles.
The flowers at the foot of the mountain bloom earlier than those on the mountain, so even though Jiang Xiaoman's beehives were put up there a long time ago, when it comes to harvesting honey, it's actually at the foot of the mountain that it has to start earlier than on the mountain.
Shan Yan and his group chose Jiang Feng's house in the same village as their first stop.
Jiang Feng was originally a carpenter. He would do odd jobs for others and never threw away the leftover scraps. Later, when he heard that Jiang Xiaoman was going to set up a beekeeping cooperative, he was among the first to join and was also one of the first in the village to put his beehives out.
If the mountain bees can move freely on cliffs and precipices to steal honey from wild bees, how much more so would domesticated native bees on flat ground?
The group arrived at Jiang Feng's house. His land was in good condition, and this year he planted rapeseed. After the rapeseed flowers bloomed in the spring, he brought back several beehives from the mountains and placed them by the rapeseed field.
"The rapeseed flowers are blooming beautifully this year, and these beehives are almost full. We've been waiting for you to come and collect the honey." Jiang Feng led a group of people to his land. When Shan Yan saw the drawer-style beehives that Jiang Feng had made himself, he couldn't help but laugh.
“I see you made this style for Xiaoman’s family too. This is more convenient for harvesting honey than the old-fashioned beehives, and it’s also easier to swarm when the seasons change.” Shanyan smiled and pointed to Jiang Feng’s new beehives.
Lang Xingguo, the town's propaganda officer, quickly raised his camera and snapped several pictures. Only after taking the pictures did he humbly ask Shan Yan, the "technical consultant," why Jiang Feng's beehives were different from those commonly used in their area.
"It's more troublesome to remove the honeycomb from the old-fashioned beehives because they tend to leak honey. This drawer-style one is much more convenient. You see, it can be opened from both sides. Before removing the honey, open the back door on the tail side to check the maturity of the honeycomb." Shan Yan explained as he carefully opened the back door of the beehive, which was actually just pulling out a pre-installed panel at the back.
Sure enough, from this side, you can clearly see the layers of honeycomb, and through the translucent honeycomb, you can clearly see that the honey inside has reached the harvesting standard.
Shan Yan and Qing Shan first put on bee protection masks. The master and apprentice worked together seamlessly. Qing Shan took a soft brush and gently brushed the native bees that were clinging to the honeycomb frames off. Shan Yan immediately put the honeycomb frames into the honey extractor. Jiang Yu, who was next to them, pressed the honey extractor and quickly turned the handle. Under the action of centrifugal force, the honey on the honeycomb was thrown onto the stainless steel barrel wall and then flowed into the barrel.
The raw honey extracted this way needs to be filtered a second time before it can be bottled and sold.
Seeing the golden honey being shaken out of the honeycomb, Sun Zheyuan and Lang Xingguo were very excited. One kept snapping photos with his camera, while the other simply took out his phone to record a video... It seems that the KPI pressure on grassroots cadres is quite high.
Spring honey is a bit thinner than winter honey, but the abundance of flowers and nectar sources in spring means that a single beehive produces more honey than winter honey.
Jiang Feng's family placed 25 beehives near the rapeseed fields and vegetable gardens, and in the end, they harvested nearly 400 catties of local honey. Only one beehive was left empty because it was flooded and infected with parasites.
Even so, the 400 jin of local honey, even at a purchase price of ten yuan per jin, brought Jiang Feng's family an income of four thousand yuan!
This is only one-third of his beehives!
Moreover, the spring honey season has only just begun this year. The wildflowers on the mountain will bloom later, and another batch of wildflower honey can be harvested then. So, even if we exclude the occasional empty buckets, Jiang Feng's family can make more than 20,000 yuan in net profit just from selling honey this season alone!
After all, there's almost no need to buy sugar to feed the bees when setting up beehives in the mountains. Moreover, the wood Jiang Feng's family uses to make beehives is all scraps he's accumulated over the years as a carpenter, and the only cost is some labor.
But what about those farmers? When it's windy or rainy and they can't find work, don't they just stay at home playing on their phones and watching TV?
Instead of having nothing to do, why not build a couple of beehives and release them to make money for your family?
"This is simply a sweet bank!" Lang Xingguo was inspired to compose a poem on the spot for the beekeeping cooperative in Langshan Village.
As Teacher Lang stood amidst a field of rapeseed flowers reciting his new work, Jiang Xiaoman also took out her phone and, in a vulgar way, began calculating how much money their cooperative could earn this season's spring honey.
When Sun Zheyuan helped him write the project application form, in order to get it approved smoothly, he exaggerated a lot of things, saying that their beekeeping cooperative, relying on the nectar source plant resources of Langshan honey, and with the technical guidance of "beekeeping experts" like Shan Yan and A Hu who have been dealing with wild bees for many years, would definitely make a profit of 500,000 yuan, and so on.
He almost broke out in a cold sweat when he saw it.
Jiang Xiaoman tried to stop Sun Zheyuan's boasting and exaggeration, but Sun Zheyuan shoved his hand away and earnestly hinted to him: "First, boast about it and get some subsidies to make the beekeeping cooperative bigger and stronger. When the project is reviewed at the end of the year, if the annual profit is less than 500,000, then drag the meteorological bureau out as a sacrifice!"
They can just say that the weather forecast was not accurate enough, which caused beekeepers to fail to respond to the severe weather in time, resulting in a large reduction in the production of outdoor beehives... Anyway, the meteorological bureau is always taking the blame for other things, so what difference does it make if they take the blame for one more time?
Moreover, this way, their cooperative can also apply for disaster relief subsidies. For example, if honey production is reduced and the farmers' native bees run out of food, won't they starve to death in winter? Wouldn't they need to get some subsidies approved so that beekeepers can use them to buy sugar to feed their bees?
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
Fortunately, none of his classmates got into the local meteorological bureau.
Otherwise, I'll definitely break off all ties with him!
Chapter 163
Jiang Feng's beehives have yielded a bumper harvest this year!
Four hundred catties of honey were extracted in just one day!
I heard they sold over four thousand yuan worth of goods in one go!
The news spread throughout Langshan Village in an instant.
Even many families living on the mountain came down to see what was happening after receiving calls from relatives.
Lang Xingguo took the opportunity to film a lot more footage and secretly regretted not reporting the lead first. What if the city's media reporters were willing to come and interview him?
But it's not too late now. I took out my phone and took several photos of Shan Yan and others harvesting honey, and also filmed a video of the people celebrating the harvest around the beehives. I sent these to reporters from several higher-level media outlets that I often submit articles to.
Officer Lang is truly skilled at fishing; once the large net is cast, he simply waits for the fish to fall into it willingly.
After shaking Jiang Feng's new honey in the morning, everyone moved on to the school in the afternoon.
Indeed, the hardworking and frugal Principal Jiang Baichuan is also a major seller of local honey every year.
However, in previous years, Principal Jiang would personally collect the honey and carry it to the market to set up a stall.
This year he's really enjoying himself. He sits in his office without a care in the world, and his nephew brings people to harvest the honey, sell it, and transfer the money directly to him...
Principal Jiang felt that although he himself did not have a son, his nephew Jiang Xiaoman was much more reliable than the biological son of most families.
The beehives at Langshan Village Primary School were all placed halfway up the mountain at the old school site. Fearing that the bees would be scared away, Shan Yan decided to carry the honey extraction machine and the plastic buckets for storing honey up the mountain.
Luckily, they brought up the honey-drying equipment.
I don't know if this year is a bumper year for spring honey in Langshan, but none of the beehives that Jiang Baichuan put on the mountain are empty!
What the villagers envied even more was that these hardworking bees not only built nests in the beehives, but when the beehives were full, they even built several large beehives on the trees!
"Goodness gracious! Could these bees also be Principal Jiang's students? Have they come to repay a debt of gratitude?"
The villagers found it quite amazing to stare at the beehives that were tightly packed together along the branches of the tree overhead.
Shan Yan looked up and saw that most of the beehives in the tree were still empty. He knew that the beehives were probably full. It was a convenient place to collect honey, sheltered from the wind and sunny, and very warm. Bees liked to build their nests here. Even when the beehives were full, they didn't leave. They simply used the materials available to build their nests in the trees...
This can only be described as God sending money to Principal Jiang.
Principal Jiang, who is known for his laid-back attitude and doesn't seem to take much care of the beehives, still managed to harvest over 500 jin of local honey from this area, earning a net profit of over 5,000 yuan!
This caused a sensation throughout Langshan Village.
It turns out that what Shan Yan and Jiang Xiaoman said was true!
All you need to do is be diligent, spend some money on labor and scrap wood, make more beehives and place them in the mountains, and you can earn tens of thousands of yuan a year!
If that's the case, then why will they grow potatoes in the future?
It would be better to follow Lang Ying's example and plant those golden chrysanthemums with Jiang Xiaoman!
Chrysanthemums can be used to make flower tea and sold for money, and more beehives can be placed in the field to collect honey!
Isn't this more profitable than growing potatoes or corn?
With money, why would they still eat potatoes?
It's not like we can't afford to eat rice every meal.
Thinking of this, several left-behind mothers in the village, whose families had many children and were usually short of money, all turned their attention to Lang Ying, who had come to help...
Well, the older women in the village now feel both pity and envy for Lang Ying.
The reason people feel sorry for her is that she met the wrong person. She worked hard and served Jiang Erming's whole family, but in the end, she and her two daughters were kicked out of the house.
People envy her because no one expected that Lang Ying, a divorced woman, would live a better life than she did during the years she was with a man!
First, she got rid of those two seemingly kind but actually ruthless old folks in the Jiang family, and no longer had to be their free nanny. Then she made a fortune making smoked fish with Jiang Yu and the others, and now she's building a new house, and learning to grow chrysanthemums and raise native bees with Jiang Xiaoman and the others…
It's fortunate that Lang Ying is capable and hardworking. As a woman, she has to take care of two daughters, cook and clean for Grandma Jiang and her granddaughter, and still find time to do odd jobs for Jiang Xiaoman... But thinking about it carefully, housework is actually the most tedious and tedious thing.
If it were them, they wouldn't have to take care of the whole family, they could still farm and keep bees without any problems, and they would even have time to do odd jobs.
Thinking about it this way, holy crap! It seems like getting divorced and raising kids might actually make life easier?
...