January 2019 – Insignia-EU

January 22, 2019February 22, 2019

Presenting INSIGNIA in Denmark

Denmark is one of the rather small beekeeping countries. But with more the 60 % of the country covered with agriculture, there are relatively good conditions for beekeeping. Having an annual average of 34 kg of honey pr. colony since 1986. Denmark having close to 140.000 colonies and 6.000 beekeepers. Commercial beekeeping is rather small, around 1 % of the beekeepers. Breeding Buckfast bees is the main breeding type of bees. Rape flowers are the main flow. INSIGNIA will run test apiaries in Denmark in year 1 and 2. INSIGNA was presented in the Danish Beekeepers Magazine (Tidsskrift for Biavl 1/2019)

Introducing INSIGNIA-danish bekeeper magazine

January 18, 2019February 18, 2019

The acronym: INSIGNIA

We have been asked, how did the name INSIGNIA turn up. We had a lot of suggestion and ideas. A lot, but then finally Fani Hatjina turned up with this, you could call formula:

cItizeN Science InvestiGation for pesticIdes in Apicultural Products = INSIGNIA

“An now you ask how did this formula turn up?”

We asked Fani.

Fani telling: “You know that there is this google program called ACRONYM creator
http://acronymcreator.net/ace.py or this one https://acronymify.com/
I think I used the first one.
I added in a row the words of our project title (all of them or some of them) and then I played around.
The program generates lots of choices, and you can pick what you think it is more suitable or easy to call or nice in the sound!
I picked INSIGNIA because it creates a music in my ear!
And this is all really!”

January 15, 2019February 21, 2019

INSIGNIA presented in Portugal

As the first country INSIGNIA is presented in the Portuguese beekeeping magazine Revista O Apicultor.

Portugal is one of the important beekeeping countries in Europe having around 600.000 colonies in 30.000 apiaries, run by 11.000 beekeepers. Professional beekeeping is relatively big, running around the half of all the colonies. Portugal was in 2015 the 9^th biggest honey producer in EU producing 11.500 tons of honey.

Read the whole article.

January 14, 2019February 17, 2019

Kick off meeting – INSIGNIA

The first “kick off” meeting of the INSIGNIA consortium took place in Oisterwijk, Netherlands in November 2018. The meeting was attended by 18 participants representing 15 institutions from 11 countries. After initial introductions and the completion of some formalities, detailed discussions took place to establish the experimental protocols which will be used in the first year of the project. An article intended for beekeeping magazines introducing the project has been written and has been published in Denmark, to be followed by magazines in Portugal and the UK.

January 12, 2019January 14, 2019

The Insignia logo

The insignia logo was suggested and create by Fani Hatjina, Ellinikos Georgikos Organismos – Dimitra (Greece). Picturing the image by Mikkel Toke Grønkjær (www.mikkelgroenkjaer.dk). It is of course the six sided hexagon cell of a bee frame. As Charles Darwin once wrote: The honeycomb is a masterpiece of engineering. It is absolutely perfect in economizing labor and wax. Mikkel produced 2 color types of the logo, and we use both.