Giving Beekeeping Guidance by cOmputatiOnal-assisted Decision making

On February 22nd 2022, BEEP held a community event for BEEP users. Eight presenters gave a short presentation for the 120 participants across the globe. Marten Schoonman (BEEP) started with an overview of the BEEP app, base and plans for the future. Frank Linton (Colonymonitoring.com) followed with an overview and update on hive monitoring developments. Zeynep Ülgezen (Wageningen University & Research) presented the B-GOOD honeybee research WUR's role in it. Diren Senger...

In the third part of the progress video series, Prof. Dirk de Graaf presents other innovative tools which B-GOOD has developed to further expand the data collection in the final years of the project. For example, the placing of accelerometers in 3 mini apiaries which constantly measured the vibrations on the combs. In addition, the researchers at B-GOOD have found a way to measure gas composition inside the hive. They embedded suitable gas sensors in the wax foundations for measurements....

In October, Professor Dr. Daniel S. Dezmirean from University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca visited The Beekeepers Association of the Republic of Moldova (Chisinau, Moldova) for a workshop with the theme  ̋Smart devices used in sustainable beekeeping" as part of the B-GOOD project. Photo: Participants at the "Smart devices used in sustainable beekeeping" workshop In November, within the same workshop, several representatives...

Successful bee research and practice requires a sound understanding of the biology of these creatures, coupled with a general knowledge of factors threatening their health worldwide. We invite you to explore these topics with the help of researchers from our project! This course will cover different aspects of honey bee’s fundamental biology, such as their ecology and evolution. Additionally, a virtual overview of various beekeeping practices will be given to introduce students to the...

The new B-GOOD video provides an update of our recent progress, this time focusing on data collection and the BEEP base and app. In the video, you can see B-GOOD's coordinator Prof. Dirk de Graaf talking about the development of the health status index for bees. He explains that the collection of Big Data is happening over the course of 3 consecutive years and makes a review of each one. Dirk also gives an overview of the BEEP base and app, which are the key tools for the data...

The importance of bees for our survival is evident, which is why the Bulgarians, who have a centuries-old honey history, honour beekeepers, honey, and bees on February 10th. Beekeeping is a traditional Bulgarian activity practised in all regions of the country. There are records from chroniclers and travellers that witnessed that beekeeping existed in Bulgarian areas even before the founding of the Bulgarian state in the Balkans in 681. Before the Proto-Bulgarians arrived from the Middle...

With the start of the new year, the good news for B-GOOD starts as well! The project was recently featured in the "Bee Farmer Magazine" - the magazine of the Bee Farmers’ Association and the only United Kingdom publication focused solely on the interests of those involved in professional beekeeping. B-GOOD’s story was featured in the magazine’s December 2020 edition (volume 7, issue 6).  Photo: Cover of the Bee Farmer magazine (left) & article about...

This first video of the new B-GOOD video series features the project coordinator Prof. Dirk de Graaf, Ghent University and showcases the progress made by B-GOOD in the first half of its lifetime. B-GOOD is all about healthy and sustainable beekeeping. Its main objective is to help beekeepers maintain a healthy colony. But what is a healthy colony? A simple question with a very complex answer. Watch the video to learn more about healthy and sustainable beekeeping and...

B-GOOD wishes you a very happy holiday season and a joyful and prosperous New

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...