Model for the bee apiary location evaluation

Honeybees are predominant and ecologically as well as economically important groupof pollinators in most geographical regions. As a result of analysing current situation in studiesand practices, a conclusion was drawn that beekeeping sector is in decline. The identified reasonsfor this are land-use intensification, monocropping, pesticide poisoning, colony diseases,parasites and adverse climate. One of the solutions is to find a proper bee colony harvestinglocation and use luring methods to attract bees to this location. Usually beekeepers choose theapiary location based on their own previous experience and sometimes the position is not optimalfor the bees. This can be explained by different flowering periods, variation of resources at theknown fields, as well as other factors. This research presents a model for evaluation of possibleapiary locations, taking into account resource availability estimation in different surroundingagricultural fields. Authors propose a model for real agricultural field location digitization andevaluation of possible apiary location by fusing information about available field resources. Toachieve this, several steps have to be completed, such as selection of fields of interest, convertingselection to polygons for further calculations, defining the potential values and coefficients foramount of resources depending on type of crops and season and calculation of harvestinglocations. As the outcome of the model, heat map of possible apiary locations are presented tothe end-user (beekeeper) in the visual way. Based on the outcome, beekeepers can plan theoptimal placement of the apiary and change it in the case of need. The Python language was usedfor the model development. Model can be extended to use additional factors and values to increasethe precision for field resource evaluation. In addition, input from users (farmers, agriculturalspecialists, etc.) about external factors, that can affect the apiary location can be taken intoaccount. This work is conducted within the Horizon 2020 FET project HIVEOPOLIS (Nr.824069– Futuristic beehives for a smart metropolis).