A Council of Agriculture research team in Miaoli County have developed an environmentally friendly crop pollination technique using honey bees that promises to contribute to natural and healthy crop cultivation, one of the researchers said yesterday.
The technique involves specially designed portable and temporary hives made from cardboard that are used to transport bees to areas of crops enclosed by netting. A box containing pollen is placed at the entrance to the temporary hive, coating the insects with the powder as they leave.
The bees pollinate the crops much more intensively and effectively than would otherwise be possible. The government has approved patents for both the temporary hive and the pollination box.
There has been an alarming decline in bee populations across the US and Europe since 2006 that experts believe represents a potential ecological and environmental catastrophe that some say could lead to a collapse of the global food chain.
In light of the problem, known as “colony collapse disorder,” the Miaoli Agricultural Research and Extension Station established the system, which uses the temporary hives to transport locally raised Italian bees to enclosed crop areas.
The technique can be also be applied to open fields as well as the netted areas, station chief Hou Feng-wu (侯鳳舞) said.
“Bee pollination not only saves labor costs of NT$40,000 [US$1,200] per hectare for artificial pollination, but also reduces the percentage of malformed fruit,” Hou said.
Hou said that although Taiwan has not seen a bee decline disaster like the one in the US, his station was working with the system as a preventative measure.
He quoted scientists as speculating there are probably at least four major reasons causing the decline in bee populations: viruses; pesticides; toxins from genetically modified crops; and possible interference by radio waves from cellular telephone transmissions, which can disorient bees.
He noted that the Miaoli station has developed its own techniques in judging whether the pollinating bees are healthy or not and to boost their health by feeding them a formula made of traditional Chinese herbal medicine.
Hou said there were a total of 631 beekeeping operations around the country, with 60,000 to 70,000 hives and more than 1.2 billion bees.
Beekeepers churn out NT$1 billion in honey and royal jelly per year, while crop outputs from bee pollination could be worth as much as NT$50 billion a year, Hou said.
“Bees are fully deserving of their title, ‘the wings of agriculture,’” Hou said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS