The startup BeeAnd.me equips beehives with IoT technology to provide beekeepers with real-time information and prevent bee mortality. The tech start-up is supported by the Austrian business accelerator acccoi partners. As a technology supplier, BeeAnd.me relies on the complete solution from Microtronics consisting of hardware, software and service.
BeeAnd.me is a kind of “baby monitor” for beehives, whose smart monitoring sensor system with warning functions and customised maintenance schedules supports beekeepers in taking optimal care of their colonies around the clock. With the specially designed and easy-to-install BeeAnd.me hive scale, for example, the health status of the bees is determined on the basis of noise patterns and precision beekeeping is made possible – without disturbing the bees. By collecting and analysing data, possible future events such as bee mortality can be reliably predicted (“predictive analytics”). In this way, the beekeeper can initiate measures in advance and, above all, in time to save his colonies. And in addition, he can monitor all his hives comfortably and time-efficiently from a distance – around the clock.
Bees as environmental sensors
To produce 1 kilogramme of honey, bees need to make 100,000 trips. The visit of about 14 million blossoms is necessary for this. On average, a single bee covers a daily distance of 85 kilometres. With up to 70,000 worker bees per colony, the sensitive bees perceive a wide range of environmental factors. Exciting information can be obtained from this almost infinite data in the beehive and quickly processed and also combined with external data for predictions.
Reference colonies are set up and the beekeeper receives a message as soon as the plants in the vicinity start to pollinate. Now the beekeeper can place more hives at that location. Through these geographical adjustments, the yield of the hives can be optimised in the course of a year.
Heat maps are created using the Big Data approach and show locations where danger to the bee colony is imminent and bee mortality is likely. But BeeAnd.me can also detect incidents in an individual hive, such as swarming, at an early stage.
Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Big Data for Predictive Analytics
BeeAnd.me combines the opportunities of IoT and Big Data to detect important conditions and even predict possible events. Only when a previously defined pattern is detected locally, sample data is transmitted. BeeAnd.me uses Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT) to transmit the data. The use of narrow band data transmission technology enables reliable and cost-effective transmission with low energy consumption.
The companies involved
About acccoi partners
acccoi partners is a business accelerator based in Vienna, specialising in corporate accelerator programmes with later stage startups in the B2B, IT and technology sector. The team of experts consists of serial entrepreneurs and former Cisco managers Martin Bittner, Marcus Oppitz and Thomas Werner. Together they founded SolveDirect, which they sold to Cisco Systems, Inc. in 2013. (California).
More information on https://acccoi.com/
About Microtronics
Microtronics is a total solution provider for IoT/M2M applications. The overall solution consists of hardware, software and service at an international service rate. The solutions from Microtronics impress with their customisability. The first step is to define the business model incl. to precisely define customer benefits and revenue streams before the technical implementation begins. Whether 2G, 3G, 4G, LoRa, NB-IoT Microtronics takes care of the secure, stable, efficient collection and transmission of data and makes it available to you via the API.
More information on https://microtronics.com
About BeeAnd.me
BeeAnd.me is a young start-up that helps beekeepers to monitor their bees. With the help of modern technology, the founders Elma Hot and Alija Dervic want to support beekeepers. Sensors are used to measure relevant parameters such as weight and heat. In addition to providing beekeepers with real-time information, the collected data will be used to answer scientific questions. One of the most important challenges is to use pattern recognition to prevent the death of bee colonies.
More information on https://beeandme.com/
