Allow us to present Suzanne, one of the very committed Danish Citizen Scientists. You never ask a lady about her age, but we can tell that Suzanne is the oldest Citizen Scientist in Denmark. She was already involved in the INSIGNIA sampling in 2019.
Suzanne is not that strong anymore, but still have a beekeeping of 10-12 colonies. She cannot lift whole boxes anymore so when she wants to check the brood box, all the frames of the supers are lifted out one at a time and placed in other boxes. In that way she avoids the heavy lifts. Suzanne is still living in her big, beautiful family house in the countryside just on the edge of one of the most beautiful nature reserves in Denmark situated close to Kalundborg on Zealand, 1.5 hours from Copenhagen.
Suzanne enjoys very much being part of our INSIGNIA network, being involved, and being part of a group having the aim of making new important discoveries.
And she is very much committed. I do remember when we made the first sampling this year. Sjef van der Steen and I visited her to learn about the sampling process at the Citizen Scientist level, and we kind of took over in order to learn the practical procedure. Suzanne had carefully studied our very nice, but also complicated protocol, and during the sampling it turned out that Suzanne had read the protocol more closely than we did. During the sampling she posed some very important questions, and she corrected us several times.
Suzanne also tries not to compromise the sampling, for example by avoiding using a smoker during the sampling as it might influence the end result. She is so right.
You can feel that she is committed to the project; she feels ownership and responsibility. She feels the importance and value of the project.
When we gave each other “high five” after the last sampling, Suzanne replied: “Please consider me for the 2023 sampling – I am so happy and honored to be a part of the project, and the results are so important”.
And yes – she is in for sure in 2023.
You never get too old to become a Citizens Scientist!
If you are interested – we will be more than happy to refer you to the National Coordinator of your country. Please contact fv@biavl.dk
