IoBee continues its tour around Europe in the form of national workshops to reach and share with local beekeepers and decision-makers among beekeeping associations. This time, in the 3rd IoBee workshop, we were able to share with beekeepers from the Féderation Française des Apiculteurs Professionels (FFAP). Welcomed by the association, our staff introduced French beekeepers to the developments of IoBee and its integration of technological developments to the field. This time, we focused on two key points: the availability of data for individual beekeepers and the importance of gathering data for large-scale decisions.
Thanks to current developments of the IoBee project, monitoring systems are becoming more and more specialised to better listen to what bees can tell us. Separating itself from other systems on the market, IoBee is integrating several devices to achieve improved data collection. The monitoring system includes monitoring developments ranging from bee traffic to applying bioacoustic sensors to monitor colony behaviour and threats. It is a state-of-the-art advancement and a valuable tool for any beekeeper who wishes to better listen to what bees have to say.
IoBee’s Communication Officer, Andrés Salazar, during the workshop in France with FFAP
Even more importantly, IoBee is continuously tuning its objectives to satisfy beekeepers’ needs better. Thanks to the workshops organised around Europe, the project to improve bee health is taking into account what beekeepers expect from a monitoring system at both, local and regional levels. Up until now, there seems to be a significant agreement among beekeepers; they hope for a monitoring system that can prove to avoid any disturbance to their bees and that requires the least amount of labour as possible. Professional beekeepers need to remain as competitive as possible, mainly taking into account current trends in the honey market, so they require a sort of monitoring system that can only help improve their productivity.
Beta testing of monitoring systems
Beekeepers need better ways to gather data from their bees, and that is what IoBee is offering them, plus an extended value. Data from hives has a precious value for the professional beekeeper, but that is not all. Thanks to IoBee’s working network, amplified by its partners, hive-data can serve not only individual purposes of each beekeeper but can even expand to a larger scale. Thanks to the integration of data in accord to strict principles on the respect of privacy, this translates into improved knowledge of conditions in the field to better assess environmental quality and better react to new or recurring risks.
The road towards digitalisation in beekeeping is not predetermined, it must be paved in collaboration with professionals in the sector. IoBee understands this and attributes great value to what beekeepers may expect from new technological applications in the field. Thanks to the collaboration between beekeepers and the IoBee team, we can envisage a brighter future for bees.
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