How IoT is helping reduce honeybee losses and increase hive productivity, Dr Fiona Edwards Murphy

Great interview with Dr Fiona Edwards Murphy who is at speaking @IEEEIoT World Conference in #Limerick

1 min pitch for what you do?

ApisProtect uses a unique combination of sensors to monitor honey bees in the hive to collect temperature, humidity, CO2, sound, and movement data from a single sensor unit installed inside the hive.

ApisMonitor Units will gather data from multiple sources including thousands of examples of healthy and weak colonies, and aggregate, anonymised data collected from hives around the globe. These data are used by ApisProtect’s algorithms to understand each hive and send suggested actions for improved colony health and help beekeepers with the key problems they face every day.

ApisProtect helps commercial beekeepers more effectively manage colonies. Contributing €153 billion worth of pollination to the agri-food industry annually, honey bees play an essential role in global food production. One third of all food that we eat depends on pollinators, and there are 91 million managed beehives worldwide.

How was the last year, what worked well, what didn’t move as quickly as you would have liked?

In the past twelve months we have rolled out our ApisMonitor Units across Europe, North America and Africa and are now monitoring 10 million honey bees foraging across 100,000 acres in 20 locations worldwide. We have been working very closely with our hosts in the different locations to ensure the technology is working as it should in the different climates. We’ve dealt with all of the usual ups and downs of getting IoT hardware working in the real world. In particular in AgTech that can mean some serious surprises, such as earlier this year when a cow decided to eat part of a prototype!

We opened our first U.S. office at the Western Growers Association’s WG Center for Innovation and Technology in Salinas, California and secured our €1.5 million seed round funding led by top-tier international venture capital investors Finistere Ventures and Atlantic Bridge Capital. Radicle Growth, the Yield Lab and Enterprise Ireland also participated in the investment round.

What are your plans for the future?

We will launch our commercial product in North America, Australia and New Zealand in late 2019 and build our team of AI specialists, engineers and scientists over the next 3 years to 25 staff. We believe our technology has the potential to ultimately help commercial pollinators and growers to optimize pollination and improve bee health worldwide.

Which influencers and websites do you follow to keep up to date with the latest developments?

As a member of IEEE, I keep up to date on new technology through their magazines and newsletters. I also follow Dr Sue Black and Brenda Romero on Twitter, two great female STEM advocates.

What will you be talking about at this event?

Dr Fiona Edwards Murphy will present “Applications for honey bee colony condition – what’s the buzz all about?”. Dr Fiona Edwards Murphy is among the most widely published authors on IoT and honeybees. Her talk will focus on how ApisProtect is bringing the power of advanced sensors and machine learning technology into the hive to deliver a 24/7 early warning system so beekeepers can give at-risk hives immediate attention and improve bee health.

The key value of this technology is the processed data – a high level overview of each apiary with a breakdown of which hives are doing well, which ones are likely to experience problems, and which hives currently need immediate attention providing a 24/7 early warning system to help reduce honey bee losses. These sensors will help beekeepers identify a wide variety of problems, earlier than they can using traditional inspections.

What inspired you to attend it?

This is a fantastic opportunity to share our technology with the global IEEE IoT community and network with world leaders in the area of IoT technology.

Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

We are currently have an opening for a data scientist to join our team www.apisprotect.com/careers – if you are interested in joining our team, get in touch.

Remember to plant some bee friendly plants in your garden to help honey bees and all pollinators this year and join our newsletter or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram  to stay up to date with our technology www.apisprotect.com

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