jan-feb-2020

IN YOUR ORCHARD participation in Tech Team lost 22.1 percent of their colonies, an 11.5 point difference to the 33.6 percent loss rates of nonparticipating sideliners and commercial beekeepers. We like to believe BIP’s insistent nagging to monitor at critical times is at least partly responsible for those differences. In 2019, our Tech Teams started to record field observations through an app, developed in-house by our IT team, which directly uploads inspection notes to our database, skipping the paper datasheets. This helped reduce the time of data processing considerably, increase consistency and reduce the risk of errors due to re-typing. Finally, 2019 marked a new concerted effort to promote BIP as a source of replicable field data. Thanks to our field and lab specialists and the support of our participating beekeepers, we are able to offer help to research institutions by coordinating their field studies. Ensuring high standards in relevant realistic conditions, we are effectively bridging the gap between scientists and beekeepers. 3 2 A L M O N D F A C T S