TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Miaoli Agricultural Research and Extension Station under the Ministry of Agriculture has developed a new bee variety with strong disease resistance and high honey productivity.
The institute held a press conference on Tuesday to introduce its new bee breeding technology. Lu Hsiu-ying (呂秀英), director of the station, said that most bees in Taiwan are bred through self-crossing by beekeepers, which has made them more vulnerable to diseases, per CNA.
Combined with the impact of climate change, disease and pest control have become increasingly difficult, resulting in a decline in honey production. The new bees were created after five years of research.
Wu Tzu-hsien (吳姿嫻), head of the sericulture and apiculture division at the station, said the team bred bees by combining colonies that were good at cleaning and disease prevention with those that were strong at collecting honey. After five generations of selective breeding, the new bee variety showed a 20% increase in cleaning behavior and a 30% improvement in honey-gathering ability.
Wu explained that most male bees regularly clean the hive by removing dead bees or waste, a natural behavior that helps protect the colony from disease. To test this, the team froze some bee pupae using liquid nitrogen and checked one day later to see how much had been cleaned out. The more the bees cleaned, the better their disease resistance.
The team also tested the bees' ability to resist infections, Wu added. They marked a set number of young bees in each colony and introduced germs that could harm them. A week later, they checked how many of the marked bees survived to measure how strong the colony's disease resistance was.
To breed bees with higher honey productivity, the team placed colonies near blooming plants. They measured honey-gathering ability by weighing the honeycombs before and after extraction. Bee groups with the highest yields were then selected for further breeding.
Lu added the station plans to offer its new breeding technology to beekeepers, schools, and academic institutions through licensing. The technology transfer fee is set at NT$130,000 (US$4,000). The license package will include more than 30 selected queen bees and over 600 male bees, along with technical documents on bee mating techniques.
