(Exclusive) Puli bees die en masse, tens of millions dead; for the third consecutive year the areca flowering season brings disaster; beekeepers flee in all directions, furious at government inaction (2019)
Another bee catastrophe in Puli, Nantou! Beekeepers recently discovered that bees were dying en masse, with corpses strewn all over the ground, convulsing and twitching in a manner similar to last year's pesticide poisoning symptoms. The beekeepers suspect the culprit is the areca nut orchards, which are in bloom and being heavily sprayed with pesticide. "Didn't the government say it was going to start regulating this? Why is it worse than last year?" Beekeepers estimate losses of more than 70 percent, and every one of them is on the verge of tears.
Arriving at the scene, dead bees lie everywhere around the hives, piled in a thick layer with almost no place to step. The lower layer consists of blackened bee corpses, while the upper layer is bright yellow - bees that died just this morning - and many dying bees stagger and crawl everywhere across the ground, while at the hive entrances bees can be seen continuously dragging their poisoned companions out.
Reporters visited four apiaries yesterday (the 14th), and the dead bees totaled more than ten million, but these visible losses are only the tip of the iceberg. Many beekeepers are unwilling to report or speak out, fearing it will hurt sales of bee products, and can only silently swallow their heavy losses. Beekeepers also worry they cannot stand up to the areca nut industry, "because the areca acreage is vast, and the betel nut guild is bigger than the beekeeping association." They can only complain that the government is unfair: why must honey products undergo strict inspection, while areca nut can be sprayed with pesticide at will with no regulation at all?
Every August when areca nut is sprayed, beekeepers tremble with dread
"Look! There are no bees left in this box! All gone!" Beekeeper A-Ji lifts the hive lid and pulls out a comb frame; only a scant few bees are left crawling on it. They have been dying for three days straight, and box after box, when opened, the bee numbers are drastically reduced, "less than a third left!"
A-Ji's bees have suffered pesticide poisoning for three consecutive years, and this year is the worst. He observes that the two nearby areca nut orchards are only 700 meters from his apiary, and as soon as the areca flowering season arrives in August, the spray trucks come, and the moment spraying begins his bees are stricken, with poisoning deaths appearing the very next day.
A-Ji has about 120 boxes of bees. Calculating at an average of more than 20,000 bees per box and 70 percent losses, at least 1.7 million bees have already died in three days. The areca flowering season lasts another two months, with pesticide sprayed once every ten days to half a month, and A-Ji's bees have no escape.
This year, lychee and longan failed to bloom due to poor weather, and honey harvests across Taiwan, China have already been severely reduced; then summer brought a repeat of the mass pesticide-poisoning deaths, making things even worse for beekeepers.
Pesticide seems more toxic than last year; bees keep dying even after rain
Reporters then went to another apiary in Puli, where the same tragedy unfolded. When beekeeper A-Wen opens his hives, the frames that should be covered with seven comb frames, packed and overflowing with bees, now cannot even fill four comb frames. His wife A-Hua remembers that on the same month and day last year, they were also cleaning up the aftermath of bee poisoning.
A-Hua says angrily, "This time it's worse than last year! It rained, and the bees still died just the same!" She says they have encountered bee poisoning for several consecutive years, and in the past, as long as it rained, the pesticide sprayed on crops would be diluted and washed away, and the bee deaths would ease, but this year a typhoon came and brought days of heavy rain, and yet the bees still died in large numbers every day.
Although nearby loofah, green pepper and passion fruit orchards also use pesticide and could also be suspects in the bee poisoning, the beekeepers observe, "Every year it's worst during the areca flowering season!" Though afraid of pesticide, the beekeepers also know that areca nut requires pesticide use, and they only ask that sprayers avoid pesticides highly lethal to bees. "They need to make a living, and we need to make a living too!" A-Hua has heard that areca nut pesticide may involve smuggling problems, and suspects they are using pesticide more toxic than before.
A-Wen's apiary has more than two hundred boxes, and in just a few days he lost more than 70 percent. His face is grim; he finds that a queen bee has also been carried out, already barely breathing, and he cannot help but heave a long sigh. These past few days he does not even dare feed sugar water, switching instead to feeding the bees powdered sugar, because the bees are too weak and might get stuck in the sugar water and drown, and if other bees drink sugar water soaked with dead bees, they may also be poisoned along with them.
For the next two months, the beekeepers not only have no income but must continue to spend on food costs - sugar and pollen - and must also endure the psychological pressure of watching bees die every day. If the losses are too severe and the bee population cannot recover, they will have to spend more money to buy bees, and each afflicted beekeeper loses hundreds of thousands of yuan.
