Project description
Introducing advanced technology in beekeeping
The role honeybees play in our life is crucial since they pollinate one third of the food dedicated to humans. However, bee numbers are decreasing, forcing beekeepers to move beehives from farm to farm to accomplish pollination. The beekeeping industry, which comprises 600 000 beekeepers across Europe, is not prepared for such large-scale activities, and bees cannot move so often. The EU-funded Pollenity project proposes a smart beehive monitoring system that permits beekeepers to control honeybee colonies, evaluate their productivity and prevent potential threats. The system consists of three products, the Beebot, which is an in-hive sensor device, complemented by HiHive, a robust weight scale, and the BBoard. The project will introduce IoT in the beekeeping industry to increase the sector's sustainability.
Objective
We rely on one third of all the food on our tables to be pollinated by honeybees. However, their number is dwindling. This obvious shortage has created a new industry - “pollination on demand”. Beekeepers move their beehives from farm to farm in order to provide this service. But beekeepers are not used to such large-scale operations and bees are not used to be moved too often. This results in honeybee colony losses of 32% to 45%.
Pollenity sets off to fix this fundamental disconnect between plants and pollinators. We are offering a smart beehive monitoring system that allows beekeepers to remotely monitor their honeybee colonies, measure their productivity, identify threats and react accordingly and on time. Our product portfolio consists of three products – Beebot, HiHive and the BBoard. The in-hive sensor device, called the Beebot is complimented by a robust weight scale – the HiHive.
The beekeeping industry in Europe features 17 million beehives and 600,000 beekeepers, which is also our serviceable obtainable market. We follow a two-tier revenue model with assets sales of the Beebot sensor and the HiHive scale, and a SaaS subscription model for the access to the software at a small fee per month.
At Bee Smart Technologies, our mission is to assist agriculture with IoT by adopting advanced technologies focusing on sustainability and re-establishing a caring relationship with nature. Our efforts have already been internationally recognized. In 2017, we became part of the IEEE network, received “The best IoT start-up” award from Central European Startup Awards, were featured in Financial Times, received FCC certification and have generally made a lot of buzz over social media.
The objective of the Phase 1 project is to prepare the Phase 2 project that will help Pollenity for large scale market uptake.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- natural sciencesbiological scienceszoologyentomologyapidology
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivity
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy scienceapiculture
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
1233 Sofia
Bulgaria
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.