Oasis 3Bee: how to regenerate biodiversity

The 3Bee's Biodiversity Oases are places where the urban world and the nature find a meeting point, areas where flora and native fauna thrive, places where, thanks to technology, biodiversity is constantly monitored. These habitats, urban and agroforestry, are created in areas and soils of low biodiversity located throughout Italy and in European countries. 3Bee's goal is to create Europe's largest ecological corridor for pollinators. But how many initiatives are planned for the creation of an oasis?

Everyone knows that honey bees live in beehives and are bred by beekeepers, but few know the importance of these insects. Being pollinators they are important for plant reproduction and thus for biodiversity and ecosystems, but there is also another reason why it is important to protect them. Bees are bioindicators, that is, sentinels of the health of the environment in which they are found. Indeed, when bees die prematurely, it means that their habitat is unable to provide enough nectar to feed the whole family or, in the worst cases, the environment is polluted. Flying from flower to flower and visiting thousands of plants every day, honey bees interact with the entire ecosystem and record information on plant biodiversity, being affected by harmful substances in the air, water or soil. That is why 3Bee also protects honey bees through Hive-Tech.

With Hive-Tech, the beehive becomes technological and enables biomonitoring, i.e. observing the health status of over 300,000 bees in a statistical manner. This technology is nothing more than a remote monitoring system equipped with biomimetic sensors installed inside the hive. The sensors make it possible to collect valuable data on the hive's main biological parameters: temperature, weight, humidity and sound intensity. Thanks to Hive-Tech we monitor environmental parameters useful for analysing the biodiversity around us and the health of pollinators, with the aim of creating a network of sentinels throughout Europe.

Through the monitoring and analysis of data on honey bees, 3Bee has become aware of the importance of taking additional actions to protect not only bees, but all pollinators. Although beekeepers are able to constantly monitor their hives, the severe reduction of habitats, often characterised by low plant diversity or blooms limited to only a few months per year, together with the negative effects of climatic events such as late frosts and droughts, cause pollinators an increasing difficulty in finding sufficient nutrient supplies. For these reasons, 3Bee decided to maximise the conservation effect through the planting of nectariferous forests.

The Nectariferous Groves are made up of a minimum of three native species, which are planted by farmers selected on the basis of agronomic expertise and after soil analysis with Flora. This screening is an essential part of the initiative, which allows for the creation of pastures with scalaric blooms so that the pollinators can find nourishment in all the seasons in which they are active. The trees that make up the Oases of Biodiversity are forest species, an important feature to favour the natural restoration of habitats as forest plants require minimal management interventions, are more resistant and allow for improved soil structure. No less important, these forests allow for the storage of CO2 in woody tissues and contribute to the fight against climate change. Would you like to support the regeneration of natural habitats?

When it comes to regeneration and environmental conservation, it is crucial to understand that these processes take considerable time to manifest the desired results. Wildlife, and in this case wild pollinators, follows natural rhythms that cannot be accelerated. Therefore, actions taken today to promote the creation of new natural habitats may require some patience as the positive benefits will only become evident in years to come. To help biodiversity and further support wild bee populations, 3Bee decided to develop a Bee House, a small house built of certified natural wood and made of bamboo canes, to house Polly, the gentle bee of the genus Osmia Bicornis.

The osmias or mason bees are excellent pollinators and bioindicators, are not aggressive and can be approached without any danger. The females, in fact, have a very small sting that they rarely use, as leading a solitary life they do not have to defend the colony as in the case of honeybees. However, it is important to know that the sting of a mason bee, although possible, is usually painless and does not pierce the skin. 3Bee's initiative makes it possible to increase the number of refuges not only for osmias, but also for other wild bee species, thus supporting local biodiversity.

Once born, the wild bees fly from flower to flower to collect nectar and pollen, contributing to the pollination of the surrounding vegetation. After amassing sufficient stocks of food, they will settle in the Bee House, sealing their cocoons with a clay plug (hence the name masonry workers). Each closed bamboo cane will correspond to a new generation of bees, but there is more. Polly can be equipped with the Polly X technology, an IoT sensor capable of monitoring various environmental parameters, such as temperature, humidity and atmospheric particles. This provides valuable information on air quality. As in the case of the technology Hive-Tech, the data can be monitored in real time and transparently via the 3Bee app, and we know whether the air we breathe on a daily basis is healthy.

In the Biodiversity Oases of 3Bee, technology joins nature to ensure the protection and regeneration of ecosystems. What makes them unique is the use of an innovative approach to assess the effectiveness of conservation strategies, identify potential threats and make improvements. The data collected through proprietary technologies are monitored, tracked and transparent. They represent a valuable resource for businesses, even in business reporting. Join our mission to conserve and protect biodiversity and contribute to the largest study project on biodiversity, bees and pollinating insects. Contact us and start your journey to protect biodiversity with 3Bee now.