EU Funded Project to Improve Bee Health Launches
Internet of Bees (IoBee)
13 March 2018
Brussels, Belgium
As bee colony losses continue to worry beekeepers, environmental groups, policy-makers and citizens, a new project aims to tackle this problem through technology and information. The Internet of Bees (IoBee) project is a European Commission funded initiative aiming to achieve unprecedented developments towards improving bees' health. Thanks to the application of the Internet of Things (IoT), beekeepers will be able to monitor their hives with user-friendly and on-time insights. And due to new developments, IoBee will open the possibility of establishing the first European Network for Integrated Beehive Health Management. The network will allow beekeepers, researchers and legislators to take necessary and timely actions to protect bees and improve the environment's quality.
IoBee will automatically determine each bee's health and the overall colony status. Each beehive equipped with optical sensors will be part of the IoBee's grid, which provides an efficient monitoring system. This development will not only save costs and time in beekeeping workforce, but it will also reduce the stress factors for bees coming with manual check-ups.
The IoBee project's ambition to become a valuable tool to all stakeholders in the beekeeping sector and beyond comes from a diverse and inter-disciplinary consortium. Partners of the consortium range from technological and technical consultants, monitor manufacturers, educational institutions, to researchers and NGOs. The project even counts with the participation of BeeLife, the European Beekeeping Coordination. Through BeeLife, European beekeepers show their support to the IoBee project, expecting an outcome that can change the current bee crisis.
The public launch of the project is now a milestone before its testing phase begins in spread locations around Europe with real beekeeping conditions. The ultimate goal of IoBee is to provide beekeepers, private and public organisations with the means to plan optimal intervention strategies to save beehives as a result of non-invasive colony inspection monitoring and real-time information availability.
As the efforts in the EU to protect bees and other pollinators continue to grow, IoBee comes at a time when urgent action to protect the bees' population is needed. With 84% of plant species and 76% of food production depending on pollination, saving bees and their pollination service has become a priority in Europe.
-ENDS-
Contact: Andrés SALAZAR, BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination: comms@bee-life.eu
NOTE TO EDITORS:
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 commercialisation of a new application of the Internet of Things (IoT) sensor, able to automatically assess the health and threat status of colonies, becoming the technical framework for a European Interoperable and Open Surveillance Network for Bee Health.
The project is operated by the following consortium partners from different countries of the European Union: Irideon, Arnia, Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Avia-GIS and BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination.