Giving Beekeeping Guidance by cOmputatiOnal-assisted Decision making

A recent article titled "Understanding social resilience in honeybee colonies" published in the open-access journal Current Research in Insect Science examines the mechanism in colonies that allow recovery and maintenance after stressor exposure. Honeybee colonies suffer substantial losses as a result of a variety of factors that can lead to colony collapse. Previous experiments demonstrate the impact of stressors including parasites, viruses, and pesticides on individual honeybees...

Are you a European beekeeper and willing to share your view?   The Department of Agricultural Economics of Ghent University (Belgium) conducts an investigation to study the socio-economics of beekeeping in the EU. This study is part of the project's aim to pave the way towards healthy and sustainable beekeeping in the EU.     The survey is available in several languages and aims to collect & analyse beekeepers’ attitudes,...

Project members and multi-actor forum members of the B-GOOD project met up between 6 and 8 December 2021. The three-day meeting was marked by insightful presentations, vivid discussions and an overview of the project’s developments and future initiatives. The 2021 B-GOOD consortium meeting was hosted by project partner Raffaele Dall'Olio (BeeSources) in Bologna, Italy. A special hybrid conference environment, provided for the meeting, proved to be efficient in facilitating dialogues...

Pollinators play a vital role in maintaining both semi-natural and agricultural ecosystems and healthy populations bolster food security, livelihoods and social wellbeing. With evidence that many species of pollinators are in decline, their conservation and management is of great public, economic and political interest. As a result, the ecology and conservation of managed and wild pollinators is a rapidly growing field of research, alongside the study of their associated ecosystem services....

The long-awaited update of the BEEP app is here! The BEEP team has been working hard over the last few months to create the latest edition of the BEEP app, which has a new layout and better features! The BEEP app now enjoys new functionalities! One of the most desired new functions being the option to set an alert, is now integrated into the app. When you use a BEEP base or another measurement system, you can either make your own or use a standard alert to get notifications when the...

The B-GOOD project was presented at the 2021 edition of the EU Pollinator Week which took place online between 27-30 September. B-GOOD project partner Dr. Coby van Dooremalen from Wageningen Food and safety Research (WFSR) participated in the European Research Projects: Monitoring Pollinators and Their Stressors session, which focused on the overview of some of the EU research projects gathering data of the status of EU pollinators or the stressing factors that can affect them, such as...

On Thursday, 23 September, B-GOOD’s coordinator Prof. Dirk de Graaf received a honorary doctorate from the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He receives this award for his pioneering work in bee research. In his laudatio, Professor Daniel Dezmirean honored Professor de Graaf's involvement in the implementation of advanced technologies in bee research for a wide range of research lines. Prof. Dirk de Graaf introduced DNA...

The B-GOOD team is looking to expand with a new post-doctoral researcher! B-GOOD project partners at Nottingham Trent University are seeking a candidate to work as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant to perform fundamental research into honey bee health and the automated monitoring of hives. The vision of B-GOOD is to pave the way towards healthy and sustainable beekeeping within the European Union by following a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach. The NTU research team...

The University of Coimbra opens an international tender to fill one vacancy for the position of junior research under a newly approved project "CONTROLVESPA", with the following characteristics: - Carry out field activities within the scope of the project, namely monitoring the development of technological strategies for remote detection of Vespa velutina nigrithorax nests. - Conduct ecotoxicological tests in laboratory and field activities to assess the effects of selected...

A new B-GOOD video titled "B-GOOD Tutorial: Top Photo Analysis" demonstrates how you can estimate honeybee colony size in the BEEP app by using the top photo analysis method. B-GOOD researcher Zeynep Ülgezen of Wageningen University and Research presents the method of measuring honeybee (Apis mellifera) colony size using the open source software ImageJ and the BEEP app. The video shows the different steps and methods within ImageJ for estimation, such as outlining the...

From July 26 to July 30, Dr. Anne Dalmon from INRAE (Avignon, France) visited Wageningen Food Safety Research (Wageningen, the Netherlands) for a collaboration of the development of an tool for on-site detection of two bee viruses, namely the acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) and the chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV). The main goal of the collaboration comprised in developing a portable on-site antibody-based immunoassay for beekeepers to monitor virus infections in...

A recent short documentary by the German broadcaster ARD features B-GOOD partner Prof. Robert Paxton and his work on the project. Robert and his team at the institute for biology, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, conduct their research in both the laboratory and in the field. The institute has access to 14 mini apiaries, where Robert demonstrates the functionalities of the BEEP bases and the digital BEEP app. These technologies allow beekeepers to constantly monitor the health of...

In light of the travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 5th B-GOOD Consortium Meeting took place online. Project members and representatives of the B-GOOD multi-actor forum met up online between 28 and 30 June 2021. The three-day long online meeting was marked by insightful presentations, vivid discussions, SWOT analysis of project objectives, and an overview of the project’s developments and future initiatives. The meeting was organised by B-GOOD partners at Aarhus...

Wild pollinators are a key part of European biodiversity and provide a wide range of benefits to crops, wild plants, and human wellbeing. In Europe and globally, wild pollinators are facing multiple threats, however, the full extent of declines, their complex causes, and the most effective ways to respond to them are not well understood. Safeguard brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe's capacity to reverse the...

An article recently published in the Special issue of MDPI called "The Citizen Science Approach for Expanding the Research on Insects" analyses the application of Citizen Science for the sustainability and survival of honey bees against the Varroa destructor Infestations. Even though certain European honey bee populations are known to naturally survive the infestations, it is unclear how widespread or common such populations are. Photo: A beekeeper with his bees. Credit:...

May 20th has been designated as World Bee Day. It thus underlines the importance of bees and other pollinators for biodiversity and food security, as well as for humanity in general. Seventy-five percent of global food crops are dependent on pollination, especially by bees. But instead of blooming wildflower meadows, the hard-working insects often only find concrete surfaces and rock gardens in our cities. In the fields of agriculture, their lives are still threatened by pesticides. Despite...

B-GOOD's lateral flow device was covered in an article of the Australian news website Mirage. The article titled "Small testing strips aid in bee protection" describes the work of Zhejiang university in the development and implementation of the lateral flow device (LFD) technology. Photo: Lateral Flow Devices. Credit: Mang Xu. The article points out that compared with traditional methods for detection of pesticides, the LFD is more operable,...

B-GOOD is committed to promoting sustainable beekeeping throughout Europe.  Beekeepers are facing many challenges, but B-GOOD is striving to deliver new technology solutions to help them reduce bee losses and improve bee health. Although that is a complex goal, we believe that unity is strength and we’re glad that B-GOOD is one of many more research projects, networks, initiatives, and organizations around Europe, promoting pollinator health. We've built a special...

At B-GOOD, 17 institutions from 13 countries across the EU join forces in an effort to pave the way toward healthy and sustainable beekeeping across the European Union. Our team is made up of scientists, beekeepers, and beekeeping associations and each team member contributes to the project with their own unique experience, skills, knowledge, and expertise. To recognize each of our project partners' important contributions, we created a new section on our website dedicated just to our...

On 26 May B-GOOD held its workshop about new technologies for beekeeping. The event titled "Hands-on neonicotinoid detection using the dual-channel neonicotinoid lateral flow device prototype" was organised by Wageningen Food Safety Research and focused on the presentation of the dual channel neonicotinoid lateral flow device prototype.  Photo: B-GOOD partners performs sample extraction and lateral flow immunoassay for the detection of neonicotinoids The...