The internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
July 7, 2015
From: ComputerWeekly.com
Gemalto’s M2M unit is developing an ambitious project with agricultural science firm Eltopia and the University of Minnesota. The objective: to save the honeybee from extinction
But now, the IoT may have found a key use case study in the fight against Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the devastating condition that has decimated honeybee populations worldwide. The IoT may not only be on the verge of saving the honeybee, but humanity itself.
CCD occurs when most of the worker bees living in a colony vanish, leaving behind food and a small cohort of bees to care for both the immature larvae and their abandoned queen.
It is a long-observed phenomenon and has gone by many different names in history, but it came to prominence in the middle of the last decade, when a sudden rise in occurrences in Europe and North America brought the condition to worldwide attention.
***
In fact, the idea of heating up beehives to combat Varroa destructor, but leaving the bees and their broods undisturbed, has been around since the 1970s, when it was developed in the former East Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Leave a Comment