Jean Zeid 06:54, March 6, 2024

Every morning, Jean Zeid delivers the best in terms of innovation.

This Wednesday, he is interested in the innovation of the company BeeGuard, which proposes to equip hives with temperature and weight sensors, and for some, with cameras, all this technological equipment making it possible to measure activity very precisely. bees.

This Wednesday morning, the bees are switching to 4G.


It was the idea of ​​Christian Lubat who co-founded the company BeeGuard in 2016 in Labège, near Toulouse, a start-up which offers to equip hives with temperature and weight sensors, and for some, cameras, everything This technological tool allows very precise measurement of bee activity.


Connected hives to monitor bees, we understand the principle.

But for what purpose?


Let's say that these sensors are there to bring precision to the measurements. The objective is to use the bee as a bio-indicator of its environment.

Her block still has a radius of 3 kilometers around the hive.

Each bee will subsist on water, nectar and pollen.

It will enter and exit 15 to 20 times a day to forage and thus take tens of thousands of samples from its environment.

This data is sent several times a day via 4G, analyzed on a server and can be viewed on the Internet.


Around 5,000 BeeGuard hives have been installed in France and Europe.


And artificial intelligence also plays a role.


Inevitable artificial intelligence.

There are the sensors, all of which measure continuously and in real time the internal temperature and weight variations of the hive, linked to foraging activity and honey production.

And then there are the two mini cameras to record the bees' entrances and exits.

Three years of research, around fifty hives in France and thanks to on-board artificial intelligence, the images are processed and analyzed to count the bees with a margin of error of less than 5%.

And all this, without disturbing the bees.

Do we still need to collect and synthesize all this data?

This is what artificial intelligence is for.

So, what is it for ?

Bees being sensitive to pollution (whether agricultural, urban or industrial), they will give an indication of the quality of the environment.


And this is also useful to farmers.


Yes, for example pollination carried out expertly by Bees are essential to the development of oilseeds. In fact, if the bees are not in good shape, this will affect the yields and quality of the seeds. If the BeeGuard sensors make it possible to know in real time the activity of the bee colonies, it also allows us to adapt in the event of poor health: we will plant a certain type of plants to help them pollinate, for example, and Beeguard to fight against the collapse of biodiversity.