Around 80 kg of highly-acclaimed honey has been collected from smart hives located on the LMT mobile network data center rooftop garden.
Unlike usual beehives, smart hives are equipped with various sensors that enable remote monitoring of the apiary, making beekeeping significantly easier.
The urban apiary of five smart hives has been home to over 150,000 bees since the beginning of this summer. The hives are equipped with various sensors to ensure the wellbeing of the bee colonies that share a rooftop with a 5G base station. The sensors measure hive weight, temperature, humidity, and the activity of the bees living inside. The apiary, additionally, is observed by two online cameras.
President of LMT, Juris Binde, shares plans to set up additional smart sensors for the hives to provide beekeepers with more information on the colonies’ lives. He adds:
We were contemplating the idea of an urban apiary for quite some time. Seeing how significant technology is for raising productivity within traditional agriculture industries, we decided to bring the idea of smart beehives to life. With time, such solutions could become an integral part of the beekeeping industry as they're able to protect bee colonies from various threats, for example, freezing.
Valdis Janovs, a beekeeper who takes care of LMT’s urban apiary on a daily basis, marks that the information provided by the smart hives makes it possible to control incoming honey more efficiently. The beekeeper knows when bees need additional honeycombs or, on the contrary, when they lack nourishment. He adds that smart monitoring leads to truly modern beekeeping – without unnecessary rush or worries.
Laboratory tests conducted by the Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health, and Environment – “BIOR” have demonstrated that the honey’s quality and composition are exemplary. It has been rated as one of the country’s best kinds of honey. Additionally, the urban smart honey was served at the official dinner during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Latvia at the end of September.
LMT’s urban apiary is a great example demonstrating how high technologies such as 5G and healthy, ancient practices can co-exist in urban settings – without sacrificing the integrity of the food we eat. Urban gardening efforts continue to support bee conservation goals, while benefiting local communities, bringing us bountiful harvests, and making full use of the latest technological advances.