Taipei City Government

The Our Unexpected Arthropod Housemates Exhibition at Taipei Zoo attracted a group of surprise guests – a group of eastern honey bees!
 
To accommodate the new home of these unexpected guests, the zoo staff readjusted the exhibition route to allow the bees to reside in a relatively undisturbed environment. On days with good weather, passerby can observe increase activities at the beehive.
 
Eastern honey bees play an important role within Taiwan’s agriculture and forestry ecosystem. However, in 2015, the sacbrood virus killed off a significant number of eastern honey bee larvae, leading to severe casualties among the wild bee population. Seeing that a small group of bees decided to pick the entrance of the exhibition as their residence, Taipei Zoo pointed out that this proves that the surrounding environment is comfortable enough for these insects to establish their home.
 
Bees are often portrayed in a negative light, due to occasional reports of people being stung by these insects at campsite or out in the fields. However, in the natural world, bees play an important role as pollinators. Their wellbeing goes hand-in-hand with fertilization of various plants and flowers, which have significant impact upon our crops and the agriculture industry.
 
The Our Unexpected Arthropod Housemates Exhibition will conclude after the Chinese New Year holiday. For those people who have already visited the exhibition, the event shows you why having insects inside your home isn’t really a bad thing – homes without insects usually means that the environment is not suitable for people as well. Taipei Zoo welcomes everyone to come to the exhibition and learn more about household insects, as well as to observe the eastern honey bees!