The Ministry of Agriculture has bred a disease-resistant, high-production strain of bees and made the strain and breeding method available to the private sector, promoting the sustainable development of the beekeeping industry.
The Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station has been researching bee strains for five years, aiming to address declining honey yields due to weakened strains and pests.
The station introduced its new breakthrough bee strain at a news conference at the ministry in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
Domestic bee colonies primarily rely on beekeepers to help them reproduce within their own colony, but inbreeding has gradually weakened strains, station director Lu Hsiu-ying (呂秀英) said.
Coupled with the increasing difficulty of pest and disease control amid climate change, honey production has declined, Lu said.
After five generations of hybridization, the station bred a new disease-resistant, high-production strain of bees, helping the beekeeping industry to improve bee genetics and overcome the effects of climate change, she said.
To develop the strain, researchers bred bees that were good at keeping hives clean with bees that were strong honey gatherers, said Wu Tzu-hsien (吳姿嫻), director of the station’s beekeeping division.
After five generations of careful selection and crossbreeding, they produced a strain that combines both traits, Wu said.
Bees that tend toward cleanliness regularly clear out waste and dead bees, which makes the hive healthier and more resistant to diseases, she said.
To measure hygienic behavior, the station used liquid nitrogen to freeze bee pupae in the hive, then checked 24 hours later to see how much had been cleaned out, Wu said.
It also marked larvae and introduced a disease that affects them, then checked their survival rate to assess a colony’s disease resistance, she said.
The station measured the honey harvested during the longan flowering period to breed strains with high honey production, she added.
It put colonies close to longan trees then measured the weight of honeycombs before and after spinning out the honey to calculate the amount collected, she said.
The new strain of bees showed a hygienic ability of 90 percent, up from 70 percent, a 40 percent improvement in larvae survival and a 30 percent improvement in honey production, Wu said.
The station’s techniques are available under a nonexclusive license, so beekeepers can use it freely to improve their own breeding skills, helping to improve domestic bee quality and honey production, Lu said.
The station would use the technique to develop breeding farms and provide high-quality bees for beekeepers, helping the industry to face modern challenges and grow sustainably, she said.
The fee for the bee breeding technology is NT$130,000 and it is available to individuals, companies and other organizations, the station said.
The package includes 30 specially selected queen bees, six frames of carefully bred bee brood and a guide to the hybrid trait preservation technique, it said.
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
The Ministry of Culture yesterday officially launched the “We TAIWAN” cultural program on Osaka’s Nakanoshima sandbank, with the program’s mascot receiving overwhelming popularity. The cultural program, which runs from Aug. 2 to 20, was designed to partner with and capitalize on the 2025 World Expo that is being held in Osaka, Japan, from April 13 to Oct. 13, the ministry said. On the first day of the cultural program, its mascot, a green creature named “a-We,” proved to be extremely popular, as its merch was immediately in high demand. Long lines formed yesterday for the opening
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716