PUBLISHED ONJanuary 31, 2023 10:00 AMByChing Shi JieWhy I Do What I Do is an original AsiaOne series where we showcase people with uncommon professions and what it takes to get there.
With only one worker for company, life away from the residential areas in Yishun can be a bit lonely.
Not that John Chong has had any complaints in the past seven years.
After all, he has friends – around 120,000 of them – in his Bee Amazed Garden along Lor Chencharu.
"When I have visitors coming here, I normally talk to my bees," the 64-year-old told AsiaOne. "[I would say], 'don't be angry, I'm just going to take you out [of the hive] and examine you'.
"[I would also say to the bees], 'without me, you would have been exterminated'. So they should be thankful to me."
John's heartbreak
The bees in the garden were saved by John after he helped remove their hives near residential areas, but the beekeeper is not spared from their aggressive attacks from time to time.
He says: "I would like to think that they know me, but I don't think so.
"I would get stung [by the bees] due to my overconfidence [when I was too lazy to don protective gear] and my carelessness. They would crawl to my tools and I can't see them at night."
John might brush off his past bee stings to his arm and legs "as nothing but pain", but he has his fair share of heartbreaks from the insects.
"There was once I told my neighbour about a wonderful job I did. I successfully relocated about 30,000 bees to my garden.
"But the next morning, the bees were all gone. What a waste of my effort, right?"
Thankfully, this particular story had a happy ending.
He heard buzzing sounds when he went to the other side of the garden, and when he looked up at the sky, he realised the bees had returned to the bee boxes.
"I might lose them, but I can gain them back. That's the greatest satisfaction [for me]."
Trading books for bees
John might look and sound like a seasoned beekeeper, but he shares how most of his working life was spent wearing a shirt and tie in a classroom.
When he was 20, John began his career as a primary school teacher. His teaching career in the next 37 years included serving as Head of Department for Physical Education in a secondary school, seven years as Vice Principal, and a stint in Hong Kong as a teacher in an international school.
But after retiring as a "loyal civil servant", John shares that a chance encounter with "some bees" got him thinking about the next phase of his life.
"I couldn't stop thinking about the possibilities with bees. I could start a farm to produce honey and create jobs," he says. "When I told [those in the teaching industry], they were like 'what do you know about beekeeping?' and 'you must be crazy'."
After learning his craft in Australia where he wrote to 10 local beekeepers seeking career advice, John had planned to set up a beekeeping school in Myanmar in 2016 "to uplift the livelihood of the people there".
But it didn't work out, John says, while attributing the turbulent political situation there as the reason.
"In hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise," the beekeeper quips. "As a result, Bee Amazed Garden was born."
Most inefficient beekeeper in the world?
With 12 colonies of bees in the garden, it might appear that there will be gallons of fresh honey being churned out every day.
While his European counterparts typically produce around 40 kilograms of honey from one colony of bees, John admits that he only produces two kilograms a year.
The reason? John shares that he is unable to grow more flowers as he does not own the land which his garden sits on.
"I think I am the most inefficient beekeeper [in the world], John, who also imports honey from Israel, says. "The garden is not meant for honey production anyway".
Taking inspiration from 'busy bees'
Preferring to call himself a "bee educator", John shares that he uses the garden to conduct lessons and tours for visitors ranging from preschoolers to university students.
Through his educational boards and a jingle about bees, John wants to dispel the misconception that bees are not as dangerous as they appear in the movies.
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Describing how he was once on the other side of the fence, the man said: "When I found a colony of bees [while teaching in a school], the first thing I did was to call pest control to kill them.
"There was no need to exterminate the bees since they didn't really harm anybody, but I was ignorant back then."
There were occasions where his visitors would cry just from their fear of seeing the bees in his garden, John shares, adding that seeing the glow and confidence in their faces at the end of lesson is the most rewarding takeaway from his job.
Some of these children even took up beekeeping as a hobby, John says. "I have a student from Belgium who's just inherited an island in Madeira [near the Portuguese mainland]. He's doing beekeeping in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Taking inspiration from his "busy" bees, John shares that by coming out of retirement to run a business, he hopes to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit among the youth.
"The business world is like 'dog eats dog', right? But despite that, I'm glad Bee Amazed Garden is still thriving," he says.
"So I hope I will be an example to our younger generation of Singaporeans. Just pursue your dream, pursue it passionately with all your heart."
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