Project to Improve the Health of Bees, The Internet of Bees, Arrives in Spain
The project financed by the European Union, the Internet of Bees (IoBee), now comes to Spain in the form of an interactive workshop with the participation of beekeepers from all over the country. The project seeks to offer new solutions to improve the health of bees and has even started field trials in Italy. Now, shortly before starting the beta tests in Spain, IoBee seeks to listen and understand the challenges and needs of Spanish beekeepers.
The workshop will be held on October 17, 2018, in Murcia, Spain, as part of the XXII State Beekeeping Conference in Murcia. Thanks to the collaboration of the COAG (Coordinator of Farmers and Cattle Ranchers Organisations), direct stakeholders interested in the development of applied technology to beekeeping will have the opportunity to know the project and provide their feedback.
Interview extract with Sandra Evans, co-founder of Arnia, partner of the IoBee project
IoBee aims to achieve unprecedented developments to improve the health of bees. Thanks to the application of the Internet of Things (IoT), beekeepers will be able to monitor their hives with useful and timely information. Thanks to new technological developments, IoBee will open the possibility of establishing the first European Network for the Comprehensive Health Management of Hives. Spain is one of the first places selected not only to develop the field tests but also to collect valuable information that serves the goal of achieving a comprehensive protection of bees and improve the quality of their environment.
IoBee focuses on two main points. First, to determine the health of the bees and the general condition of the colony. Each hive equipped with monitoring systems is part of the IoBee network, thus providing an efficient monitoring network. This development will not only save costs and time in the beekeeping workforce but also reduce the stress factors for bees derived from manual checks. Second, to make a compilation of practical information that alerts beekeepers about any threat to their hives. Thanks to an online platform, IoBee establishes new processes and seeks to be an aid to approach beekeepers to their colonies, giving them the necessary tools to better listen to what their bees have to say.
The arrival of IoBee in Spain marks the advance in its development and is proof of the project’s quest to offer beekeepers a solution tailored to their needs. The organisation of workshops and the beginning of the field tests in the country mark a milestone in the evolution of the project, seeking an improvement in the health of bees all around Europe.
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Contact: Andrés SALAZAR, 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, through 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.
The project is operated by the following partners of the consortium, coming from different countries of the European Union: Irideon, Arnia, Technological Institute of Education of Crete, Avia-GIS and BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination.