Gong Yifei (1926- ) is a beekeeper, the founder of the bee science specialty in China's higher agricultural colleges and universities, and an active organizer of beekeeping societies at all levels. Originally from Fuzhou, he was born on May 27, 1926 in Jimei Town, Xiamen. He is a professor and a member of the Jiu San Society. He graduated from the Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Fujian Concordia University in 1949, and stayed in the university as a teaching assistant and agricultural extension officer. From May 1951, when the faculty was reorganized into the Fujian College of Agriculture, until his retirement in October 1995, he served as Assistant Professor, Lecturer, Associate Professor, and Professor, and from 1981 to 1989, he was the Head of the Department of Apiculture (changed to the Department of Apiculture in 1988). He was a deputy to the 7th and 8th National People's Congress, the 3rd and 4th vice-chairman of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the Jiusan Society, a special researcher of the Institute of Bee Research of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a visiting professor of the College of Animal Science of Zhejiang Agricultural University, a member of the Animal Husbandry Discipline Group of the Teaching Material Steering Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, the head of the Apiology Specialized Group, the vice president of the China Beekeeping Society for the 1st to 3rd sessions, and the president of the Beekeeping Society of Fujian Province for the 1st to 3rd sessions. He is now the chief consultant of Chinese Beekeeping Society, the honorary president of Fujian Beekeeping Society, the honorary director of Bee Therapy Research Institute of Fujian University of Agriculture and Forestry, and the consultant of Fujian Provincial Committee of the Jiusan Society, and was awarded as the advanced worker in education of Fujian Province in 1985, the model worker of Fuzhou City in 1988, and the advanced worker of Fujian Provincial Association for Science and Technology in 1996, and one of the five modern beekeepers of China by Chinese Beekeeping Society in 1990. In 1990, he was honored as one of the five modern beekeepers in China by the Chinese Beekeeping Society, and his works were published in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Agriculture. Since 1992, he has been awarded special allowance by the State Council.

Background

The 1930s and 1940s were Gong Yifei's childhood and adolescence, and most families in old China lived in dire straits. Although Gong Yifei grew up in Gong Yitu's "Gong's Garden" (the centerpiece of the West Lake Hotel), a large and well-known family in Fuzhou, the affluence of Gong's Garden had little to do with his family because he was not a direct descendant. Fortunately, the mansion, which was like a grand view garden, was filled with countless flowers, birds, insects and fish. These natural creatures in Gong Yifei's childhood became his obsession love of biology free teacher.

His father, Gong Lixian, was a biology teacher, and his family had many specimens of animals and plants. His father's words and teachings also contributed to the development of his interest in biology. But it was his family's misfortune that really set him on the "sweet path" of beekeeping and bee research. During the Anti-Japanese War, his father died at the age of 42. His mother, who worked as a librarian, had to raise five children on her own, and in 1944, Gong Yifei, the oldest, was admitted to the university, which was a great relief and a difficult task for a family that struggled to make ends meet in everyday life. He dropped out of the horticulture department of Concordia University's College of Agriculture midway through the program and worked as an elementary school teacher for a year to supplement his family's income.

The Concordia University campus is located at the foot of Gushan Mountain in the village of Kuiqi on the banks of the Min River, surrounded by beautiful mountains and rivers and lush forests, suitable for beekeeping. in the 1940s, Gong Yifei studied under Prof. Lin Qing during his undergraduate studies to learn beekeeping. Since he had the knowledge, he could put it to use, and beekeeping was a small investment with quick returns, beekeeping was a desirable way for him to help his studies. So he borrowed money from friends and relatives and immediately put the idea into practice. 10 boxes of bees were kept in an orchard quite far away from the school. On weekends, he took a boat across the river from Kuiqi and traveled more than 10 miles to take care of the colonies. He relied on his knowledge and hard work to master the art of bee management, and the colonies brought him rewards: the 10 boxes of bees yielded more than 500kg of honey in a season. According to the current price, 1kg of honey can be exchanged for 6kg of rice, 500kg of honey is 3000kg of rice. This solved the problem of school fees and food for the family. In this way, Gong Yifei and the bees have formed an unbreakable bond.

Education

He graduated from the school in the summer of 1949, and stayed there to work on beekeeping classes. 1958, he was appointed to build an apiary at the Fujian Agricultural College, and was appointed as the head of the apiary, and at the same time, he donated his private small apiary to the apiary. 1959, he was appointed as a special researcher at the Institute of Apiculture of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and was invited as a teacher of the First National Beekeeping Teacher Training Course held by the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing in 1960, and was invited as a teacher of the First National Beekeeping Teacher Training Course held by the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing. In 1960, he was invited to be the teacher of the first National Beekeeping Teacher Training Course organized by the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing, lecturing on bee biology. In the same year, the Fujian Agricultural College established a 2-year beekeeping program, and he became the director of the beekeeping teaching and research group. In 1961, he was appointed as a special researcher by the Fuzhou Institute of Science, and in 1965, he hosted the National Beekeeping Teachers' Training Course, which provided the backbone for the promotion of scientific beekeeping.

In 1967, when the enrollment of beekeeping was stopped due to the Cultural Revolution, he organized more than 100 swarms of Italian bees from the teaching apiary to collect cotton honey in Turpan Basin of Xinjiang, and created a high yield record of 190kg of honey in an average swarm.

During the period of decentralization, he worked with the local farmers in the mountainous region of Furo in Pucheng County, Fujian Province, planting fruit trees and trapping the wild Chinese honey bees, and changed the old method of keeping Chinese honey bees in drums to the live frames, and built a collective fixed-frame and scientific rearing. During the period of decentralization in 1972, he worked with local farmers to plant fruit trees and trap wild Chinese bees in Fuluo mountainous area of Pucheng County, Fujian Province, and changed the old method of keeping Chinese bees in drums to live frames by scientific rearing, and built a collective fixed-land apiary, which accumulated experience in exploring the potential of nectar source in the mountainous areas along the border of Fujian, Zhejiang, and Gan and the life rules of wild honey bees. In 1981, the only beekeeping department in China was established in Fujian Agricultural College, and he became the head of the department; in 1984, the department began to train master's degree students. This department has now been expanded into the College of Apiculture of Fujian University of Agriculture and Forestry, with three majors: Apiculture, Bee Product Processing and Trade, and Bee Therapy, and it has become the only base in China to cultivate diversified undergraduate talents in Apiculture in higher education. Since 1960, it has sent more than 1,000 graduates with specialties, undergraduate degrees and master's degrees to various departments of China's bee industry, and trained hundreds of specialized technical personnel in the bee industry. Some of them have become famous professors, doctoral supervisors, scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, leaders of teaching and research institutions at home and abroad. ...... It is true that "the waves of the Yangtze River push forward the waves of the past, and one wave is even higher than the other". Mr. Gong has been through the vicissitudes of life for decades, contributing his life's energy to the cause of bee education and struggle, and now has the peach and plum blossom, fruitful!

Scientific research

Gong Yifei in the 1940s in the Concordia University College of Agriculture, while keeping bees to help students, and under the supervision of Professor Zhao Xiu Xiu elective Entomology and Insect Taxonomy, and Darwin's doctrine of deep interest in the exploration of the mysteries of the world of honeybees, hoping to utilize the honeybee in order to thick life. After graduation, he has been engaged in beekeeping teaching, scientific research as well as production work, accumulating rich experience and first-hand information. After the founding of New China, he studied "Theory of Practice", "Theory of Contradiction" and "Dialectical Materialism", and his eyes were opened to the belief that all insights come from practice. His mastery of bee science is the result of his long-term practice.

Since 1952, Gong Yifei has done a lot of work in beekeeping research and teaching, including research on many topics, such as pollination of crops by bees, high yielding technology of honey, prevention and control of diseases and enemies of bees, bee biology, and new technology of bee breeding. He has published more than 30 academic papers in national and local journals, and in 1982, under his auspices, he succeeded in researching artificial insemination technology of Chinese honey bees for the first time, which won the third prize of Provincial Scientific and Technological Achievements, and in 1975, he compiled the book How to Keep Bees, which combined theories with rich practical experience, and was printed for six times, with a circulation of 670,000, which was important for popularizing the technology of bee-keeping. He was entrusted by the Education Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to edit the first textbook of higher agricultural colleges and universities in China, Beekeeping, which was awarded the National Outstanding Science and Technology Book Prize from 1977 to 1981. He was commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Education to edit the national vocational and technical education textbook for farmers, Beekeeping, which was printed five times. He also participated in the preparation and translation of Manual of Beekeeping, Manual of Side Industry Production, Encyclopedia of Agriculture? Beekeeping Volume", "Bee Mechanics", and the world's leading book on beekeeping, "Beehives and Bees".

He had many influential academic ideas. As early as in the 1950s, he predicted that the Chinese bee would have an irreplaceable position in the vast mountainous and forested areas of South China and Southwest China for the western bee species based on the unique adaptability of the Chinese bee. Over the past half century, this prediction has been confirmed by beekeeping practice. His article "On the Chinese Bee" published in the 70's has been selected and published in many professional journals or collections of papers over the years. In the area of bee pollination, he first imaginatively proposed that the evolution from wind vector to insect vector in the plant kingdom is exactly the same as the evolution from in vitro fertilization to in vivo fertilization in the animal kingdom, which belongs to a breakthrough leap in the way of seed transmission. His insights have enriched the theoretical basis for the use of bee pollination to increase production.

Natural bee-splitting is the most prominent group activity of honey bees, which is crucial for cultivating strong colonies and stabilizing the motivation of worker bees to harvest honey. Gong Yifei has reached a new level in China by applying the unity of opposites viewpoint for the first time to explain the internal and external causes of natural bee separation. This is of wide significance in guiding production practice. Based on his own practice of obtaining stable and high production of beekeeping in the hot summer of Turpan Basin, he denied the traditional view that the difficulty of beekeeping in South China is due to the high temperature, pointing out that the honey bees of the colony have an amazing regulating ability to the temperature, and that the difficulty of beekeeping in South China is caused by the rampant honey bee enemy pests and the depletion of honey pollen sources in local areas, which can be completely overcome by human efforts. Split bee fever in honey flow colonies is a fatal injury in beekeeping production. As early as in the 1950s, he experimented with an effective method to solve this problem based on the developmental law of the king's throne - king removal combined with the method of destroying the throne by secondary selection. In the last decade, he has directed his assistants and graduate students to work on the mating biology of honey bees, artificial insemination of honey bees, storage of honey bee semen, rinsing and extraction of honey bee semen, and made new contributions to the basic technology of honey bee breeding.

Specifically, in the summer of 1984, he and Comrade Zhang Qikang visited Xishuangbanna for the first time, and witnessed the rich and colorful bee species resources in the pristine tropical rainforests in the southwest of China, which gave rise to the idea of writing a book of Honey Bee Classification and Evolution.In the early 1990s, under the financial support of the Science and Technology Commission of Fujian Province, they trekked through the mountains in the north and south in the summer for five consecutive years, and waded into the Changbaishan Mountain, the Wundashan Mountain, the Great and Small Hinggan Mountains before and after the trip, Xishuangbanna Primitive Forest, Tianshan Mountain, Altay Mountain, Yili Grassland, Turpan Basin, Qilian Mountain, Hexi Corridor, Liupan Mountain, Hetao, Mao Wusu Desert, Inner Mongolia Grassland, Wuzhishan Mountain, Hundred Thousand Mountains, and Hengshan Mountain, field visits, collection of specimens, collection of pictures, information, and very much benefited from the various parties to help, and harvested a lot of; what is even more pleasing is that the relevant disciplines have made a major breakthrough, the results of the experts and volunteers repeatedly, and gradually make their ambition into a The book is a great example of the way in which we can make a difference.

The book Classification and Evolution of Honey Bees is divided into four chapters, including classification, species, evolution and origin of honey bees. It explains the ins and outs of the honey bee genus, its affinity and geographical distribution, and introduces the morphological features, biological characteristics, disease and enemy resistance of each bee species, as well as evaluating their economic value from the point of view of rearing in different regions. This book is a valuable reference for bee world explorers, beekeeping producers, bee breeders and bee quarantine personnel.