Southeast Asian dwarf honey bee appears in Taiwan, China for the first time; Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station urges public to report any sightings

The Southeast Asian dwarf honey bee (Apis florea Fabr.) has crossed the sea to Taiwan, China! Recently, a member of the public found a colony of "very peculiar, never-before-seen" small honey bees on their balcony. After being reported through various channels to the Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station under the Council of Agriculture, it was confirmed to be the dwarf honey bee, which is mainly distributed across Africa, East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Wu Tzu-hsien, head of the Sericulture and Apiculture Section at the Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, said that because few people keep dwarf honey bees, it is suspected they may have arrived via shipping. Testing is currently underway to determine whether the bees carry foreign viruses. If the public sees dwarf honey bees in the wild, please report it to the Miaoli Station or the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine so that the bees' movements can be tracked.

The dwarf honey bee is one of the smaller bees in the genus Apis, being 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the common Italian bee. Its abdomen is reddish-brown, and it generally builds its nest on shrubs or low tree branches. It is mainly distributed in Africa, East Asia and Southeast Asia; it can even be seen in Yunnan and southwestern Guangxi in mainland China.

(This article was funded by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation for personnel and administrative costs, but the foundation has no influence over news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring journalistic independence.)