2013 ITApic

The Application of Information Technologies in Precision Apiculture (ITApic) project has been funded within the ICT-AGRI 2012 call for transnational research projects.

Project summary:

This project proposes implementation of precision agriculture technologies and methods in the beekeeping. Precision agriculture approach is adapted for beekeeping based on the various measurements of individual bee colonies all year around thus detecting different states of colonies and apiaries enabling rapid reaction by the beekeeper in case of necessity. Digital measurements such as temperature, humidity, audio and video can be used to detect several states of a bee colony: swarming, broodless stage, brood rearing, illness. Lots of separated scientific research has been done with these techniques related to bee biology, but they have never been combined to develop an apicultural health observation and warning system.

The main aim of the project is to apply precision agriculture principles in beekeeping utilizing existing industrial resources and newest achievements in information and communication technologies. Precision Apiculture or Precision Beekeeping is an apiary management strategy based on the monitoring of individual bee colonies to minimize resource consumption and maximize the productivity of bees. Project main goal is to identify different states of the bee colony and prevent colony losses. Developed automatic system could help to determine states of the colony alerting the farmer if any aberrations from normal states are metered realizing the Precision Apiculture approach. Resulting optimization of operational costs and colony losses would increase the profitability and stability of beekeeping.

The system will be based on measuring techniques which are established in the use with bee hives. These are microclimate and environment measurements, hive acoustic analysis and video observation techniques. Lots of separated scientific research has been done with these techniques related to bee biology, but they have never been combined to develop an apicultural health observation and warning system.

To reach the project aim there are defined several objectives:

• Development of a specific bee hive monitoring system to improve beekeeping practice;
• Development of a precision beekeeping web service system including wireless sensor networks for apiaries and a measurement database;
• Promotion of implementation of precision beekeeping in EU countries.

In view of the topicality of the subject "Bee health!", State Secretary Kloos presented a grant for an innovative research project to develop a health monitoring system for bee colonies.

responsible : Dr. Uwe Richter