Many people say that honey is very good for promoting health.

But they are unaware of beekeepers that climb mountains with beehives on their backs and bee farming which requires more laborious efforts every day.

Ji Chun Gwang, resident in Ryonmot-dong, Sosong District, Pyongyang, is a well-known beekeeper.

Returning home after his military service 17 years ago, he started his social life at the honey production cooperative in Pyongyang.

The natural environment of the country blessed with beautiful mountains and rivers and various kinds of flowers in full bloom provided favourable conditions for producing honey on an extensive scale.

With a high degree of consciousness to make a tangible contribution to promoting the people’s health by producing large amounts of honey, he immersed himself in reading data about beekeeping to study the physiological features of bees and learned from good experience of veteran beekeepers.

He would put out beehives every spring and travel all over the country, including South Hamgyong, North Phyongan, Ryanggang and North Hwanghae provinces, in search of various nectar of acacia, linden, bush clover, perilla, buckwheat and other plants.

He has 38 beehives, each of which has about 20 000 honeybees. He collects 70 to 100 kg of honey in a beehive every year.

He always observes his own three principles for keeping a swarm of bees—making them powerful, attaching importance to a queen and improving its quality, and taking care of bees according to a regulation.

Jang Son Hi, his colleague resident in Ryongsong-dong No. 2, Ryongsong District, Pyongyang, said: All his beehives have strong swarms of bees, produce large amounts of honey and propolis, and have high resistance to diseases.

Ji Chun Gwang also attaches importance to feeding bees and taking anti-epizootic measures.

He says: Beekeeping presents various advantages. Not only honey but also propolis, beeswax, royal jelly and other bee by-products are very good for health. Bee farming is also conducive to improving the living standards.

He finds his greatest pleasure in collecting honey from beehives.

Having rich experience and traditional knowledge of the kinds and habits of bees, keeping bees in the right season in the favourable place, and properly deciding the methods of separating or combining bees and collecting honey—all these are the knack of producing much honey, he adds.

He preserves the valuable experience and customs of the ancestors and applies modern sci-tech achievements and management methods to the bee-keeping and honey-processing, with the result that he turns out large amounts of honey and bee by-products every year.

He is a member of the Korean Beekeeper Association.