Project research manager; Project coordinator at the Poznań University of Life Sciences:
Aleksandra Łangowska
Project implemented in a consortium Apis Pro Futuro:
Vivende Ltd., Poland (Leader)
Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland: Laboratory of Apidology (Project research management); Animal Reproduction Laboratory of Department of Genetics and Animal Breeding
Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland
West Pomeranian Agricultural Advisory Centre (ZODR) in Barzkowice, Poland
Farmers: Aniela Staszewska; Andrzej Karbowy
Budget
Total budget: 2 684 953.31 PLN
Financial support obtained: 2 283 612.00 PLN
The operation aims to produce the highest quality honey using the IoT system (Internet of Things).
Beekeeping is a niche and conservative branch of agriculture and enjoys little interest among young farmers. On the other hand, amateur beekeeping is becoming increasingly popular, particularly among city people. We aim to provide solutions for managing beekeeping production to make it easier and less time-consuming. We also aim to make beekeeping more responsible and sustainable. Modernizing beekeeping production by adopting modern IoT solutions will make beekeeping more attractive to the young generation without losing its other advantages, especially the pleasure of observing the fascinating life of bee colonies.
Recently, some concerns have been raised over the increasing popularity of beekeeping. Keeping colonies by inexperienced and busy amateur beekeepers increases the risk of frequent swarms, which is unwelcome and threatens urban residents. Similarly, amateur apiaries may overlook starting or already ongoing disease processes in the bee colony, which creates an epidemiological risk for the local and neighboring honey bee populations, and even wild pollinators. A system of an intelligent hive equipped with sensors monitoring the condition of the colony and remotely sending information along with the interpretation of their meaning will facilitate ongoing control over the state of the bee colony and enable remote consultations with specialists, e.g., veterinarians. The ability to immediately detect bee poisoning with pesticides allows a beekeeper to react quickly, even far from the apiary. Apiaries equipped with solutions resulting from our operation will co-create a rapid response system for veterinary services and build a precious database of objectified data for science.