Fighting Honey-Bee Colony Mortality through IoT
IoBee is an EU-funded project aiming to disrupt the bee-keeping market by providing effective, timely and user-friendly monitoring systems. The project focuses on the development and integration of different technologies to monitor pollinators and their environment. The IoBee project concluded in April 2020, with the development of in-hive and in-field monitoring, as well as the implementation of satellite imagery and Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS). IoBee also initiated the first steps in the construction of a platform to integrate and communicate on pollinator-related data from various sources, The Bee Hub.
Are you interested in monitoring systems developed and perfected during the IoBee project?
Contact our project partners directly for more information on hardware.
Bee counters and IoT application: Canetis
Optoelectronic sensor to monitor density and diversity of pollinators: Irideon
THE SITUATION
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would only have four years left to live”
Albert Einstein
For the past 25 years, European beekeepers have been reporting weakening bee numbers and colony losses, and the situation is worsening. According to the EU Reference Laboratory (EURL) for honey-bee health, some countries in the EU are losing up to a third of their colonies every year.
The most important contribution bees make to agriculture is the pollination service they provide. The direct value of honey produced in the EU is estimated at €140 million, while the value of insect pollination for European agriculture has been estimated to be approximately €20 billion per year, and €153 billion worldwide.
Pollinators’ decline brings along a significant loss of pollination services, which have negative ecological and economic impacts affecting the maintenance of wild plant diversity, large-scale ecosystem stability with potentially harmful effects on crop production, food security and human welfare.
Honeybee mortality in the EU 2013. Anything above 10% is unacceptable according to experts.
“The Plight of the Honeybee” article published in Time Magazine August 19, 2013.
HOW IoBee WORKS
IoBee sets itself apart from numerous Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) sensing solutions being sold today to equip beehives… it is the missing disruptive technology to complement them!
The basic tool perfected in IoBee is a Bee Counter installed at the entrance of the hive to monitor bee traffic. The counter also detects pests and provides insights on the status of the colony.
IoBee also developed a sensor to monitor the density and diversity of pollinators in the field. This monitor aims at replacing traditional insect traps, avoiding harming insects and reducing manual labour.
Finally, IoBee pairs monitoring with satellite imagery through which predictive models are created to provide important information for beekeepers and environmental authorities such as phenology periods and land use.
Thanks to these tools, beekeepers, researchers and public authorities can improve their role as active participants in colony surveillance programmes. With unprecedented accuracy and responsiveness, these tools open new possibilities in reducing labour costs of manual inspections. Thanks to IoBee’s monitoring, healthy or threatened colonies can be remotely detected with greater precision, saving millions of Euros in potential losses.
FEATURED NEWS
The Internet of Bees Project Concludes with Further Developments on Pollinator Monitoring
The EU-funded project, The Internet of Bees (IoBee) is reaching its conclusion after developing a set of monitoring tools for bees, other insects and their environment. After more than two years of activities, IoBee developed and improved bee monitoring solutions in...
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Major Beekeeping Players See Potential in New Technologies, but they still Await for the Proper Development
The development of new technological innovations for beekeeping has been increasing in the last few years. Private and public investment in the sector has led to increasing competition, giving beekeepers a vast selection of tools at their disposal. However, is the...
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Preparing for final stages of the project after M24 meeting
The Internet of Bees is reaching its final stages of development. After 24 months of continuous work on three pillars (in-hive and in-field monitoring, and spatial decision support systems SDSS), the project moves forward to a final phase of testing and validation....
read moreEach IoBee module will be able to:
PARTNERS
The consortium
IRIDEON SL (Coordinator) – Spain
IRIDEON SL is a Spanish-German company founded by a multidisciplinary team of engineers with experience in industry and academia. Since 2011 this team provides technical consultancy services and solutions to SMEs and research organizations throughout Europe, primarily in the field of information and communications technologies (ICT) and sensor systems.
www.irideon.eu
Canetis – Italy
Canetis SRL was established in 2019. It supplies state of the art remote hive monitoring technology that generates vital data for beekeepers, scientists, food producers and governments worldwide. Its unique combination of sensors, powerful analytics and cloud computing provide real time insight into colony health and behaviour that would otherwise be unattainable.
Hellenic Mediterranean University – Greece
The Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU), ex Technological Education Institute of Crete, has a history of about 40 years, that of the Technological Educational Institution of Crete, and offers high quality undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Informatics and Engineering Sciences, Health, Agriculture and Food, Economics and Management and Environment . HMU through its heritage is consistently valued as a leading among its peers in research and enjoys recognition for its direct contribution to the development of Crete and Greece.
https://hmu.gr
Avia-GIS BVBA – Belgium
Avia-GIS bvba, “Agriculture and Veterinary Information and Analysis” is a Belgian SME founded in 2001 that specializes in the collection, processing and analysis of spatial information as a basis for the development of data driven space-time information systems applied to veterinary and public health in general and (emerging) zoonoses and vector-borne diseases (VBD) in particular.
www.avia-gis.com
Bee Life European Beekeeping Coordination – Belgium
BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination is a non-profit organisation composed by beekeepers from the different EU Member States who share the same goal to protect bees. Bee Life welcomes members ranging from beekeeping and agricultural organisations to pollinator protection NGOs.Currently, its members spread to Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Spain and Sweden. However, BeeLife’s network within the beekeeping sector goes far beyond these countries.
www.bee-life.eu
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