Smart Agriculture Innovation ~
Queen Pheromones Replace Queen
En-Cheng Yang's research team from the Department of Entomology, National Taiwan University, solves the pollination dilemma of melon and fruit farmers.
The queen-free beehive can also perform the task of pollinating melons and fruits in the greenhouse! The research team of Professor En-Cheng Yang of the Department of Entomology of National Taiwan University has completed the innovation of smart agriculture, replacing the queen in the beehive with queen pheromones, which will be industrialized in the future to solve the long-term problem of melon and fruit farmers couldn't find the bee pollination dilemma.
En-Cheng Yang, a professor of the Department of Entomology, College of Bioresources and Agriculture at National Taiwan University, said that the research team he led intends to replace the queen in the hive with queen pheromones and apply this queen-free beehive to the pollination in the greenhouse. Our new operation can effectively avoid many foraging bees' death and attempts to escape from the greenhouse.
The study found that the honey bees are stabilized in the greenhouse by directly using the comb containing worker bees and pheromone. The effect of pollinating with a queen-free beehive was tested in a greenhouse of two thousand square meters of cantaloupe melons. Our results showed that only a small number of bees are required for pollination in the greenhouse.
Professor Yang said that the traditional pollination method uses a whole hive of bees, and the number of bees far exceeds the number required for pollination. Therefore, farmers need to open the beehive to feed the bees, which are quickly attacked by the bees.
This research found that using queen pheromones allows only one comb of bees in the hive, which can achieve colony stability, thus effectively reducing the number of bees in the greenhouse and completing the task of pollination. It has been tested that the queen pheromone used in a single hive comb can stabilize the colony for three months.
Since the number of bees required for pollination does not need a whole colony, we designed a carton beehive with only two combs used for pollination in the greenhouse. Currently, carton beehives with queen-free pollination technology have been applied to 10 crops in 45 greenhouses in Taiwan for pollination experiments, including cantaloupe, muskmelon, loofah, bitter gourd, cucumber, gherkin, passion fruit, jujube, zucchini and watermelon, the preliminary results have achieved good pollination results.
圖片說明:臺大昆蟲系楊恩誠教授,研發全球獨步無蜂王授粉技術 蜂王費洛蒙取代蜂巢蜂王。
圖片說明:楊恩誠研究團隊於3月27日在台大農業陳列館,舉辦「溫網室授粉有解!無蜂王授粉技術開發與應用」成果發表記者會。(右五:台大副校長丁詩同、右四:昆蟲系教授楊恩誠、左五:台大生農學院副院長林裕彬、右二:生農學院副院長李達源)
Table 1. Comparison between queen-free pollination pattern and traditional beehive pollination pattern
Figure 1. Honey bees pollinate cantaloupe flowers
Figure 2. Place carton beehives with queen-free pollination in the jujube greenhouse
Figure 3. Place a carton beehive with queen-free pollination in the bitter gourd greenhouse
Figure 4. Honey bees pollinate muskmelon flowers
Figure 5. muskmelon fruiting
Figure 6. Cantaloupe fruiting
Figure 7. Place a carton beehive with queen-free pollination in the bitter gourd greenhouse
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https://www.ettoday.net/news/20230327/2467628.htm?from=ettoday_app
https://www.agriharvest.tw/archives/99114
https://udn.com/news/amp/story/7266/7058992
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https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20230327001940-260405?chdtv
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