The bees are robbing again! Betel nut blossoms are used, bees die one after another, but the government sets empty norms but does not carry out the investigation.

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Betel nut blossoms and bees are poisoned and killed again! It has been the fourth year in a row that "upstream and downstream" have been tracking bees' deaths caused by betel nut drugs. Tragedies still happen year after year, and Nantou Puli bee farmers, who play darts every year, are still fleeing everywhere.

Honeybee farmers in Puli say that last year, bees died intensively at once, but this year they died in batches, and some bees flew out and never came back at all. "We've been told to go, so hurry up, or will we stay in Puli and let the bees die?" Many bee farmers have long gone to the mountains to avoid disaster, but the elderly bee farmers have no strength to flee and have no choice but to wait to die. A single household has lost millions of bees and is completely chilled by the government's inaction over the years.

Honeybees have been poisoned for four years, and the samples of dead bees have been found to be a killer insecticide dimethamine this year.

Every year from July to September is the central betel nut flowering season, betel nut farmers will spray at this time to control insect pests, but lead to the poisoning of bees visiting flowers, bee farmers suffered heavy losses year after year. Last year, "Upstream and downstream" launched a special report entitled "uncovering the biggest Pesticide loophole in Taiwan: betel Nut Co-operation for 30 years," revealing that there was no management of betel nut drugs, which not only aroused social concern, but also immediately launched an investigation by the Supervisory Yuan. In April this year (2020), the Council of Agriculture issued an investigation report criticizing the Council of Agriculture for "real failure."

The Council of Agriculture promised to fully accept the use of betel nut, and to formulate recommended drug use and residue standards for betel nut. However, the "upstream and downstream" once again received a report from bee farmers that they had died of bee poisoning.After site investigation, the reporter further inquired about the current management situation of government units, but found that the prevention and inspection bureau claimed that it wanted to investigate, but could not tell the results of the investigation, while the local agriculture departments knew nothing about the new regulations.

The pesticide that used to pose the greatest threat to bees was fenpril, which can cause acute poisoning and death of bees at very low doses. This year, the reporter randomly sampled the dead bees from a single beehive, although they did not detect fenpronil, but detected 0.02 ppm of the insecticide. Dimethalin is a killer insecticide that not only poisons and kills honeybees, but also, according to previous studies, delays the return of bees to their nests and reduces their feeding activity.

Last year, the "upstream and downstream" sampled weeds under the betel nut trees that had just been sprayed with pesticides for testing, and the four pesticides detected also contained diphenamine, which is obviously a common pesticide for betel nut. However, among the betel nut drugs newly regulated by the Prevention and Inspection Bureau this year, there is no dimethamine, and it is illegal for farmers to kill bees by mistake if they continue to use betel nuts.

Difenning is a killer insecticide, a synthetic pyrethrin, which is toxic to insects and acts quickly (Photography / Li Huiyi) the old farmer is depressed and loses millions of bees: he can't run when he is old, and he doesn't want to run anymore.

Ah Chengbo and his wife (pseudonym), who have been beekeepers for more than 40 years, have been affected by beenut spray for several years in a row. Sister-in-law A Cheng said that at the beginning of July, there were a large number of deaths similar to those in previous years, with a pile of dead bees on the door of the beehive, while those who had not yet died were constantly beating and twitching. After mid-August, the death mode of bees changed. There were no dead bees at the door of the hive, but the colony continued to decrease. Obviously, the bees did not come back and did not know what kind of poison they had.

"the first 80 cases of bee death left less than 10 cases, the second 80 cases reduced 25 cases, and the third scene lost nearly 10 cases of ⋯⋯." A Cheng's wife took an inventory under the tree one by one. This year, the loss of bees is about 100 cases. based on a conservative calculation of 10, 000 bees, the loss is more than 1 million bees. Ah Chengbo can only continue to merge the remaining beehives and move the clapboard back to the freezer inventory to reduce the loss as much as possible.

Ah Chengbo and his wife looked at the empty beehive and were full of grievances and reluctance. (photography / Lin Jiyang)

To two old people.