An international grid of remotely-monitored beehives uses artificial intelligence and cloud computing for analysis of the global bee population health and engineering lasting solutions to reverse its decline.
Some of the causes of shrinking populations of vital pollinators include pesticides, habitat loss, and climate change.
Beekeepers have been using commercial hive sensor to monitor the health and wellbeing of individual colonies for many years. World Hive Network has gone one step further by creating a ‘hive mind’, in the truest sense of the word. It links 2.5bn hives of bees to data-crunching programs. Each hive has sensors that measure a variety of variables, including weight, temperature and humidity as well as sound and ambient weather.
The network is part of The World Bee Project CIC. It was launched by Sabiha Malik eight years ago. The goal of the project is to use AI to address issues such as pollinator decline, food insecurity, and climate change.
“Bees lie at the heart of the relationships that bind the natural and human worlds, and in safeguarding bees lies the means to safeguard life itself,” says The World Bee Project.
Image: Damien Tupinier
