Berliner Boersenzeitung - Hive mind: Tunisia beekeepers abuzz over early warning system

EUR -
AED 4.178426
AFN 79.167405
ALL 98.060105
AMD 436.693803
ANG 2.036005
AOA 1043.791486
ARS 1347.252549
AUD 1.759577
AWG 2.049169
AZN 1.910892
BAM 1.953039
BBD 2.298032
BDT 139.074868
BGN 1.955683
BHD 0.428824
BIF 3388.066486
BMD 1.137637
BND 1.466514
BOB 7.864814
BRL 6.409417
BSD 1.138181
BTN 97.511887
BWP 15.278204
BYN 3.724802
BYR 22297.685477
BZD 2.286248
CAD 1.561105
CDF 3259.330522
CHF 0.936956
CLF 0.027864
CLP 1069.276332
CNY 8.195875
CNH 8.180412
COP 4694.720795
CRC 579.375992
CUC 1.137637
CUP 30.147381
CVE 110.105017
CZK 24.891196
DJF 202.180553
DKK 7.458914
DOP 67.20501
DZD 149.875728
EGP 56.505179
ERN 17.064555
ETB 155.405078
FJD 2.56344
FKP 0.839728
GBP 0.841209
GEL 3.117211
GGP 0.839728
GHS 11.64344
GIP 0.839728
GMD 81.910185
GNF 9864.666646
GTQ 8.741107
GYD 238.121336
HKD 8.925001
HNL 29.655084
HRK 7.532635
HTG 148.99809
HUF 403.609734
IDR 18587.509883
ILS 4.004539
IMP 0.839728
INR 97.50744
IQD 1490.992566
IRR 47922.959241
ISK 144.605271
JEP 0.839728
JMD 181.553385
JOD 0.806578
JPY 163.677557
KES 147.039767
KGS 99.4862
KHR 4564.488169
KMF 494.301134
KPW 1023.8033
KRW 1566.912621
KWD 0.34897
KYD 0.948447
KZT 582.940922
LAK 24583.037173
LBP 101979.96065
LKR 340.69748
LRD 227.066061
LSL 20.384234
LTL 3.359146
LVL 0.688145
LYD 6.196242
MAD 10.466093
MDL 19.576072
MGA 5172.643292
MKD 61.499701
MMK 2388.355188
MNT 4069.813709
MOP 9.197619
MRU 44.991407
MUR 51.682917
MVR 17.587556
MWK 1973.593089
MXN 21.911026
MYR 4.829247
MZN 72.706455
NAD 20.385486
NGN 1800.549212
NIO 41.880069
NOK 11.54164
NPR 156.020103
NZD 1.895605
OMR 0.43742
PAB 1.138181
PEN 4.120803
PGK 4.676205
PHP 63.373191
PKR 322.141749
PLN 4.27755
PYG 9094.145937
QAR 4.14997
RON 5.057479
RSD 117.214173
RUB 89.845321
RWF 1610.402553
SAR 4.267057
SBD 9.500142
SCR 16.756107
SDG 683.151078
SEK 10.944521
SGD 1.466613
SHP 0.894004
SLE 25.846723
SLL 23855.679611
SOS 650.474873
SRD 42.260376
STD 23546.789313
SVC 9.95853
SYP 14791.345992
SZL 20.376021
THB 37.132267
TJS 11.267874
TMT 3.987418
TND 3.388011
TOP 2.664462
TRY 44.512313
TTD 7.723016
TWD 34.134226
TZS 3060.243236
UAH 47.272613
UGX 4145.141077
USD 1.137637
UYU 47.451054
UZS 14607.774913
VES 107.900918
VND 29641.132404
VUV 137.46876
WST 3.141781
XAF 655.022526
XAG 0.03295
XAU 0.000339
XCD 3.074521
XDR 0.81106
XOF 655.005278
XPF 119.331742
YER 277.413054
ZAR 20.335376
ZMK 10240.097137
ZMW 30.559537
ZWL 366.318654
  • RBGPF

    -1.5000

    67.5

    -2.22%

  • CMSC

    0.0470

    22.117

    +0.21%

  • RYCEF

    0.1600

    12.04

    +1.33%

  • NGG

    -0.5350

    71.395

    -0.75%

  • AZN

    0.2500

    72.18

    +0.35%

  • VOD

    -0.0750

    10.325

    -0.73%

  • GSK

    -1.1450

    40.51

    -2.83%

  • BTI

    1.0550

    46.445

    +2.27%

  • RIO

    -0.6700

    58.91

    -1.14%

  • BP

    0.0120

    29.577

    +0.04%

  • RELX

    -0.5500

    54.03

    -1.02%

  • CMSD

    0.0128

    22.0789

    +0.06%

  • BCE

    -0.3800

    21.9

    -1.74%

  • BCC

    1.9750

    87.075

    +2.27%

  • SCS

    0.3700

    10.56

    +3.5%

  • JRI

    0.0340

    12.95

    +0.26%

Hive mind: Tunisia beekeepers abuzz over early warning system
Hive mind: Tunisia beekeepers abuzz over early warning system / Photo: FETHI BELAID - AFP

Hive mind: Tunisia beekeepers abuzz over early warning system

Elias Chebbi inspected a beehive in a field in Tunisia, minutes after a buzz on his phone warned him of a potential problem.

Text size:

The 39-year-old beekeeper opened a flap in the hive to reveal a low-cost, locally made sensor dedicated to measuring key environmental variables. An app on his phone then warns him if action needs to be taken.

"Thanks to this, I can relax," he said. "It tells me remotely everything that's happening."

Chebbi has two of the sensors, entirely produced in Tunisia by the only company of its kind in North Africa.

He periodically places one in each of the 100 or so hives he keeps, on a grassy hillside an hour's drive from the capital Tunis.

The devices, each costing under 300 Tunisian dinars (around 92 euros), send live updates on temperature, humidity and the weight of the hive to a central computer.

It then analyses the data and helps him react quickly to potential problems -- as well as selecting the most resilient, productive queens for breeding.

That is a major asset as bee colonies face multiple threats, including climate change and increasingly common collapses of entire hives.

- Key role of bees -

Chebbi remembers being stung by a sudden heatwave in 2013, before he started using the system, when he lost around a quarter of his hives.

"I had big losses, 26 hives, because of humidity and the sudden change in temperature," he said.

But since he started using the SmartBee system -- developed in 2020 by a group of young Tunisian engineering graduates -- his losses have dropped dramatically, to under 10 percent of his hives in a given year.

He has also boosted his honey production by 30-40 percent.

Today, Khaled Bouchoucha, 34-year-old CEO of manufacturer Beekeeper Tech, says the sensors gather "a huge amount of information on the bees' yield and the threats they face".

The gadgets "gather reliable data in real time, so beekeepers can make good decisions and avoid collapse of their hives", he said.

This data is then fed wirelessly to the company's cloud computing system, which analyses it to identify potential problems.

If it does, it sends a warning to the beekeeper to intervene -- by cooling overheating hives, adding insulation to those that are dangerously cold, or providing sugar solution to those whose weight shows that they have not produced enough honey to survive the winter.

Beekeeper Tech has sold over 1,000 of the systems, mostly in Tunisia and neighbouring countries.

Bouchoucha says customers are swarming to the app and the firm's workers are preparing another 1,500 orders for customers in Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and even New Zealand.

- Boosting food security -

Bee populations around the world are facing disaster from overuse of pesticides, mites and temperature extremes due to climate change.

That also spells catastrophe for humans, as we depend on pollination by bees for over a quarter of all the food we consume.

According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, three quarters of the world's main crops depend on pollinators -- but the insects are in decline worldwide, mostly due to human activities.

Beekeeping itself is also a vital livelihood for many.

In Tunisia, with its population of 11 million, the sector employs some 13,000 people and produces some 2,800 tonnes of honey every year, according to its agricultural union.

The FAO marks a World Bee Day every year on May 20 to raise awareness about "the essential role bees and other pollinators play in keeping people and the planet healthy."

The SmartBee app offers more than an early warning system.

The data it collects also tells beekeepers about the health and productivity of each hive, its resistance to changes in climate.

Mnaouer Djemali, chief scientific officer at the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia and a co-founder of Beekeeper Tech, said data from the hives "enables us to measure the profitability of each queen" and to select the best for breeding.

"That can help us boost our food security and sovereignty," he said. "We are sorely in need of that in a world full of diseases and wars."

(F.Schuster--BBZ)