Challenges in the development of Precision Beekeeping

Aleksejs Zacepins, Valters Brusbardis, Jurijs Meitalovs (Corresponding Author), Egils Stalidzans

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

128 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Precision Beekeeping (PB), a sub-branch of Precision Agriculture, is an apiary management strategy based on the monitoring of individual bee colonies to minimise resource consumption and maximise the productivity of bees. Although there are sufficient technical means and industrial products for the practical execution of PB, the process is slow due to the differing states of development of three implementation phases: data collection, data analysis and application.The technical execution, adequacy of earlier and current solutions and development perspectives are analysed to prioritise different challenges for PB. The development of decision support systems, which is usually a stumbling block in Precision Agriculture, is suggested to be a mid-term task. In the long term, specific DSS-controlled electronic devices should be developed to enable new functionalities for PB. Specific classes of actors are proposed to operate within future PB systems for the automatic execution of suggestions made by decision support systems, as well as for diagnostic purposes.PB systems should be optimised by searching for appropriate combinations of different sensors, and corresponding decision support systems must provide convenient, reliable and cost efficient solutions. The development and specification of PB systems should consider business interests, distance to the apiary, expected risks and other peculiarities.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)60-71
Number of pages12
JournalBiosystems Engineering
Volume130
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords*

  • Decision support
  • Honey bee
  • Monitoring
  • Precision Apiculture
  • Precision Beekeeping
  • Sensors

Field of Science*

  • 2.11 Other engineering and technologies
  • 4.1 Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries

Publication Type*

  • 1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus database

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Challenges in the development of Precision Beekeeping'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this