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Denmark has now made the setup in all five apiaries. The pilot study is rather complicated, but when you first do it in practical beekeeping, then it turns out to be easy. It takes 16 min to set up a colony for the pilot study. But there is a lot of small bits and pieces you have to have control on. So, at the first setup we  have to get at sessor, an envelope, clips etc. We felt we did a rather long walk as well. But now it is up running and we are looking forward to the sampling in 2 weeks’ time.

Subscribe our newsletter on what is happening during the 2022-23 at the exciting INSIGNIA project. We will keep you regular updated on our progress, activities, blog and social media. Become aware of our project and follow our pilot project in 2022 (Greece, Denmark and Austria) – where we build on the INSIGNIA-BEE project from 2019-2021 – with heavy metal, microplastic and air pollutants. We evaluate a variety of different solutions. Then in in 2023, the best practice for using honeybees as bio-monitors will become rolled out in all Europe. A very exciting project. Stay tuned and subscribe our newsletter.

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All colonies checked at the five testing sites. Spring explodes in Denmark, with cold nights, but nice sunshine during daytime. Bee really flying. Oilseed rape and apples are in full blossoms and the colonies do explode. We need to be careful with swarming.

Continue reading “Danish INSIGNIA colonies are ready”

INSIGNIA is an exciting project, that has run so nice and smoothly. Within our consortium we have a great team spirit. We have become connected, involved, concerned, developed, creative, inspiring etc. I could keep writing. The short story, networks and friendships are created for lifetime. New projects arise due to constructive talks and discussion. New questions asked.

Continue reading “INSIGNIA creating networks across Europe.”

Then better listen to Andreia Quaresma. She will explain it to you in a 2 min speed talk at the TiBE – Trends in Biodiversity and Evolution Conference.

Continue reading “Do you understand what the metabar coding in the INSIGNIA project is about?”

Today Saturday the 23rd of January we congratulate Sjef van der Steen with his 69th birthday.

After his retirement Sjef found that retirement should not be wasted on playing golf. The passion for bees and science was stronger. Sjef discovered a H2020 call on using honeybees for monitoring pollution. Continue reading “Happy birthday Sjef”

By Amadeo Fernandez-Alba (Spain) Flemming Vejsnæs (Denmark) & Sjef van der Steen (The Netherlands) – The international INSIGNIA group

Microplastics are everywhere. The term microplastic is given to all micrometre (thousandth of a millimetre) sized plastic fragments. These small-sized plastic fragments come from cosmetics and industry, called primary microplastics, and also from the degradation of the enormous amounts of plastics all over the world, called secondary microplastics. Furthermore, there are also synthetic fibres, twisted with wool, cotton or cellulose used in clothing. Due to wear and washing, small parts of these fibres also end up in the environment and are also considered microplastics.

Continue reading “Bee-monitoring for microplastics”

This year, the TiBE – Trends in Biodiversity and Evolution Conference (https://cibio.up.pt/tibe/details/tibe2020) was fully dedicated to Metabarcoding and Metagenomics, which fitted like a glove in one of the INSIGNIA’s objectives: metabarcoding identification of botanical origin of pollen samples diligently collected by many Citizen Scientists from across Europe. Continue reading “INSIGINIA presenting on: TiBE – Trends in Biodiversity and Evolution Conference”

Looking on the danish map, Jylland kind of has a nose. On the tip of the nose Martin Lesak is living, since ever. Martin has Czech roots and he brings the beekeeping tradition from there. Martin is involved. Fascinated by the nature of the organism of the beehive. Continue reading “Behind the Citizens Scientist – Martin Lesak”