(Exclusive) Puli bees die en masse, tens of millions dead; betel nut flowering season hit by catastrophe for three years running; beekeepers flee and rage at government inaction (2019)

(August 16 update: The sampling and testing results submitted by NewsMarket have come out - it's the pesticide fipronil causing trouble again! There are also pesticide cocktail hazards; please click here to read)

Nantou's Puli has once again been hit by a bee catastrophe! Beekeepers recently discovered that large numbers of bees had suddenly died, with corpses strewn across the ground, their death throes marked by constant twitching and jumping, similar to last year's pesticide poisoning symptoms. Beekeepers suspect the culprit is the betel nut plantations that are in bloom and being heavily sprayed with pesticides. "Didn't the government say it was going to start regulating this? How is it worse than last year?" Beekeepers estimate losses of more than 70 percent, and all of them are crying without tears.

At the scene, dead bees lay everywhere around the hives, piled into a thick layer with almost no place to step. The lower layer consisted of already blackened bee corpses, while the upper layer was bright yellow bees that had just died this morning. Many dying bees were still stumbling and crawling everywhere on the ground, and at the hive entrances, bees could be seen constantly dragging their poisoned companions out.

A reporter visited four apiaries yesterday (the 14th), and the dead bees totaled more than 10 million, but these visible losses are only the tip of the iceberg. Many beekeepers are unwilling to report or publicize the matter because they worry it will affect sales of bee products, so they can only silently swallow the huge loss. Beekeepers also worry they cannot fight the betel nut industry, "because the betel nut area is vast, and the Betel Nut Association is bigger than the Beekeepers Association." They can only complain that the government is unfair: why must honey products all undergo strict inspection, while betel nut can be sprayed with pesticides at will with no regulation at all?

Every August when betel nut is sprayed, beekeepers tremble with fear

"Look! There are no bees left in this box! All gone!" Beekeeper Aji lifted the hive lid and pulled up a comb frame, with only a scant few bees still crawling on it. The deaths had continued for three days; box after box was opened, and the bee numbers had all dropped sharply, "less than one-third left!"

Aji's bees have suffered pesticide poisoning for three years in a row, and this year is the worst. He observed that the two nearby betel nut plantations are only 700 meters from his apiary, and as soon as the August betel nut flowering season arrives, the spraying truck comes. Once spraying begins, his bees are immediately harmed, and the next day symptoms of poisoning death appear.

Aji has about 120 hives. Calculating at an average of more than 20,000 bees per hive and a 70 percent loss, at least 1.7 million bees have already died in three days. The betel nut flowering season lasts two more months, with pesticide spraying every ten days to half a month, so Aji's bees cannot escape disaster.

This year, lychee and longan did not bloom because of poor weather, so honey production across Taiwan was already severely reduced. Unexpectedly, summer brought a repeat of the large-scale pesticide poisoning deaths, making things even worse for beekeepers.

The pesticide seems more toxic than last year's; bees keep dying even after rain

The reporter then went to another apiary in Puli, where the same tragedy was playing out. When beekeeper Awen's hives were opened, the seven comb frames that should have been covered with crowded, overflowing bees could not even fill four frames. His wife Ahua remembered that on the same month and day last year, they were also cleaning up the aftermath of bee poisoning.

Ahua said angrily, "This time it's worse than last year! Even after rain, the bees still keep dying!" She said they had encountered bee poisoning for several years in a row. In the past, as long as it rained, the pesticides sprayed on crops would be diluted and washed away, and the bee deaths would ease, but this year a typhoon brought days of heavy rain, and the bees still died in large numbers every day.

Although there are also loofah, green pepper, and passion fruit orchards nearby that use pesticides and could also be suspects in the bee poisoning, the beekeepers observed, "Every year it is worst during the betel nut flowering period!" Though afraid of pesticides, the beekeepers also know that betel nut has a need for pesticide use, and they only ask that sprayers avoid pesticides that are highly lethal to bees. "They need to make a living, and we need to make a living too!" Ahua heard that betel nut pesticides may recently have had smuggling problems, and suspected they were using pesticides more toxic than before.

Awen's apiary has more than 200 hives, and in just a few days he lost more than 70 percent. His face was grim as he found that a queen bee had also been carried out, already barely breathing, and he could not help but sigh deeply. These past few days, he did not even dare feed sugar water, and instead fed the bees powdered sugar, because the bees were so weak they could get stuck in sugar water and drown, and if other bees drank sugar water soaked with dead bees, they might also be poisoned.

For the next two months, the beekeepers will not only have no income but must continue paying for food costs: sugar and pollen, while also enduring the psychological pressure of watching bees die every day. If the damage is too severe and the bee population cannot recover, they will have to spend more money to buy bees, and each affected beekeeper loses hundreds of thousands of yuan.