It has been known for years: bees are in danger. Its population is declining and the use of agrochemicals and the transmission of pests such as varroa threaten this pollinating insect, essential for the maintenance of biodiversity.
Global Bee Project (GBP) was born to face these problems and research to prevent them. Evaristo Pastor, David M. and David Bosch have created a system of sensors that can be installed in hives that allow monitoring the activity of bees inside the hives, improving their quality of life and, with it, increasing the honey production.
Evaristo Pastor, CEO of the company, a forestry engineer, is also an amateur beekeeper. With 20 years of experience in agricultural consulting, he observed the problems facing the sector, such as the decrease in the bee population and the lack of generational renewal in the profession, for which he relied on David M. (CTO), an industrial engineer with 20 years of experience in the sector and industry 4.0, to investigate around the digitization of beekeeping.
Together, they have devised a kit with multiple sensors that record the movement of the bees, the opening of the hive, the temperatures and humidity both inside and outside, the weight of the brood chamber and honey storage, the geolocation, battery status, and even has alarms in case something goes wrong. A pioneering engineering that has artificial intelligence and whose activity can be followed from its application for mobile phones and devices.
“The movement of the bees can tell us if something is not right: if there is less activity, that may mean they are sick, so the beekeeper can act quickly,” explains David Bosch, GBP CMO, agroecology expert and with 20 years of experience in marketing and entrepreneurship, as well as president of the Association of Producers of Garrofó Valencià.
One of the main threats to this insect is the transmission of varroa, a small ectoparasitic mite from Asia that settles on the back of the young bees and causes them to be born deformed and die, according to David M. The sensors of the GBP kit could detect this and prevent the spread of the parasite to other hives.
In addition, they allow to know the life inside the hive without having to open it. This improves the quality of life of the bees, since they "get stressed" when the beekeeper opens his hive and this also causes a drop in production. This also serves to prevent the theft of honey: before the movement, an alarm would go off that would go directly to the beekeeper's phone.
These insects also get sick from the amount of pesticides currently used on crops. The bees go to these and, with the pollen, they also take the agrochemicals and insecticides, which they later transmit to the honey.
The GBP kit has a geolocation system that allows us to know where the hives are located and where they travel, since they are sometimes moved depending on the flowering season of one crop or another.
Honey and oil are two of the most adulterated products in the world, as David Bosch puts it. “There is no way to prove what honey has been produced in a specific hive, that means that honey from some hives and others can be mixed. GBP sensors detect the traceability and the weight index of the honey that tells us how much has been produced in each hive, which makes it more difficult to adulterate the product”, he adds.
One of the outstanding concepts of this project is its monitoring of product traceability, that is, the tracking of all honey production processes. This is key in agroecological food: “To obtain the organic certificate, a hive must have a 3-kilometer radius with organic or wild crops, that is, without agrochemicals. The beekeeper can show that his honey has come from there thanks to the geolocation of our kit ”, explains David Bosch.
And it is that the data collected by the sensors can be consulted, but not altered by the beekeeper, which offers a guarantee, a verification of the traceability of the product.
David M., an engineer, points out that the differentiating element of the Global Bee Project is that it is not just a kit that is sold to the beekeeper, but that the purpose of the company is research through the collection of multiple data from hives. to compile statistics and understand the causes of bee problems and, over time, anticipate and prevent them.
GBP comes at a time of consolidation in technology and connectivity. The beekeeping sector is a traditional sector that still "lacks digitization, modernization and generational change", as David M explains. The average age in the profession is over sixty years and the implementation of an application like this would not only facilitate the work to beekeepers (who could produce much more and have everything under control from their mobile), but would also attract a younger audience, more familiar with technology.
After three and a half years of research and "trial and error" from the laboratories of the Universitat Politècnica de València to the field, with beekeepers who have been using their kits for some time, Global Bee Project goes on the market this December. They have public support from the Institut Valencià de Competitivitat Empresarial (IVACE), dependent on the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition; and from Leader, public aid from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
According to a report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IBPES), 75% of the food we consume depends on pollination, 37% of bee populations in Europe are in decline and the economic value of pollination for Spanish agriculture stands at more than 2.4 million euros. For all this, Global Bee Project comes at a time when the protection of bees is essential for both the economy and the environment.
