On 14th of May, during the International Demo Day, in Ulm, Germany, seven Open Innovation Labs from seven countries: Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovak Republic and Romania have presented their results to real entrepreneurship problems which they worked during the second cycle of open innovation labs. After an open evaluation process the most appreciated project from the point of Innovation, Implementation and Impression of the presentation came from the team “BzzWatchers” (Mihai Vidrașcu, Elena Valentina Dumitrașcu, Ștefania Cantaragiu, Alin Alexandru Șerban) from Open Innovation Lab UDJG, Galați, Romania.

The title of their project was “Bee Hive Monitoring System using fog computing” and it was launched by an innovative software company in Bucharest Romania called SOFT TEHNICA.

A short description of the challenge:

In the modern world bees are struggling to survive. Pollution, pesticides and all kind of chemical products kill the bees. The increasing number of radio electric devices broadcasting radio frequency interfere with bees’ ability to orient and return home. In this tough environment bee farmers need to be able to check more frequently the health status of the bee hives and take decisions fast with no additional costs.

The solution:

The team found solutions for the database and display software. The sound is captured with a MEMS microphone with a digital interface. For the bee counting, they proposed an array of infra-red light optical mouse sensors.

The system is currently in the prototype stage, functional in the laboratory. Properly completed, the system facilitates the work of the beekeeper by shortening the time elapsed between changing the family buzz and the actual intervention. Thus, natural (unwanted) rooting can be avoided, abnormal situations can be identified (egg loss, deadly detection, lack of food in winter) and more specific steps in the colony's activity (such as the beginning of laying to the end of winter).