The Internet of Bees or IoBee is a project funded by the European Commission to help tackle the current bee health crisis. It focuses on the application of the Internet of Things to beehive monitoring. Paired with satellite mapping, it aims at introducing a groundbreaking method to acquire data on bees and their environment. After almost two years in development, the project is now reaching the Apimondia International Apiculture Congress.
Apimondia is the biggest beekeeping congress in the world. This time it will be held in Montreal, Canada from 8-12 September 2019. On Thursday, September 12, Sandra Evans will be presenting the objectives and the progress of IoBee. Ms Evans is the co-founder of the project partner, Arnia. Other partners are the Technological Institute of Crete, Avia-GIS, Irideon and BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination.
IoBee’s presentation will take place at the Palais des congrès de Montreal, during the Cross-cutting symposium on Innovations for Monitoring Colonies on room 517D. During the symposium, beekeepers and researchers from around the world will discuss the different methods and techniques to monitor bees. Besides, they will look into different ways to read collected data and transform it into valuable information. The participation of IoBee marks a new frontier for the project. It enters a new dimension in the international struggle to improve bee health.
Bee counter installed for IoBee field tests
IoBee is working to disrupt the bee health monitoring market. It is developing essential innovations such as monitoring bee flight activity, the density and diversity of wild pollinators in the field, big data collection, and the processing and analysis of spatial information. The project introduces an interdisciplinary approach that involves digital monitoring, data science and geographic information systems. It even counts with a direct line of feedback from over 20 national beekeeping associations throughout Europe.
The grand objective of the project is to provide the underlying structure to create integrating bee health information networks. IoBee is working on perfecting beehive monitoring and couple it with the satellite data. Thanks to the latter, it will be possible to predict critical environmental conditions for bees such as blooming periods and other phenological parameters. IoBee points to provide intelligent warning systems thanks to both in-field and satellite data.
Warning systems based on such predictive tools take into account the needs of beekeepers and associations to improve the health of their bees. It also counts on providing valuable information for management decisions concerning nectar flows, risks of infestations from pests such as small hive beetle and the Asian hornet, pathologies and use of crop protection products. IoBee is also working on expanding its impact, opening the possibility of setting the basis for the first European Network for Integrated Beehive Health Management. The network would allow public authorities and policymakers to have a better input for their decisions regarding the protection of pollinators, land use and climate change.
IoBee has already participated in other major beekeeping events such as Beecome (Romania), Apimell (Italy), XXII State Beekeeping Conference (Spain), Assembly of the French Federation of National Beekeepers (France), IoT Solutions World Congress, and others. It now continues to expand its work and sharing its experiences with international experts.
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Contact: Andrés SALAZAR, IoBee, BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination: comms@bee-life.eu
NOTE TO EDITORS:
IoBee is an EU-funded project that aims to disrupt the beekeeping market by providing practical, timely and easy-to-use monitoring systems. The project focuses on the commercialisation of a new monitoring application, applying technological developments of the Internet of Things (IoT), capable of automatically evaluating the health of the colonies and their threats, becoming the technical framework for an Open Interoperable Surveillance Network for the Health of the Bees.
IoBee aims to create a valuable resource for all stakeholders in the beekeeping sector. It will be able to do this because it functions as a diverse, international and interdisciplinary consortium. Partners range from technological and technical consultants such as IRIDEON (Spain) and AVIA-GIS (Belgium), monitoring systems manufacturers and developers as ARNIA (UK), educational institutions as TEIC (Crete), to researchers and NGOs. The project also depends on the participation of BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination, through which beekeepers can show their support for the IoBee project, in the hope of confronting the ongoing bee crisis.