Alongside the unmistakable green drives, a color that has always characterized the logo and the tranquility of the Welsh countryside where it began its adventure 50 years ago, Control Techniques at the next edition of SPS Italia (Parma, May 23-25, 2023) will combine the color yellow, typical of bees and honey. The reason? The company, part of the Nidec Group and a global benchmark in the development, production and marketing of high-performance and efficient electric drives, has decided to support 3Bee‘s ‘Adopt a Beehive’ project.
3Bee is a young agri-tech company and startup that develops intelligent monitoring and diagnostic systems for bee health, and whose activities include collaborations with the EU and ESA (European Space Agency) on biodiversity issues.
The parallel that runs between Control Techniques’ activities, its participation in SPS Italy and the “Adopt in the Hive” project seems clear. Control Techniques’ drives are today the emblem of an ever-evolving automation that, in order to meet the needs of the industrial world, must not only guarantee evolved functionality with a view to control and digitization, but increasingly higher levels of efficiency, in line with what the environment requires of us in terms of sustainability, both current and future.
Similarly, the project developed by 3Bee aims to help beekeepers manage their hives efficiently and as sustainably as possible in order to optimize honey production and, at the same time, preserve bees by preventing the occurrence of diseases or other issues related to pollution, pathogens and other factors. How? Through the use of the tools that technology offers us today, such as IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (artificial intelligence), which together with the ability to constantly monitor the hives, allow the beekeeper to save time, waste fewer resources and intervene in a targeted manner when needed, that is, more efficiently and effectively.
The network created by 3Bee currently has about 10,000 stakeholders, including beekeepers, supporters, institutions, individuals and companies. It is this great strength that allowed this Italian start-up a few years ago to start with a program of research, development and circular economy, which later turned into the ‘Adopt a Beehive’ project. To date, there are more than 60 million bees monitored in more than 1,000 hives that, with their industrious pollination work, have enabled a floral growth capable of generating a positive spin-off in terms of CO2 absorbed equal to 302 tons.
“For Control Techniques, 2023 is a very important year, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its founding. Our intention was to celebrate this milestone with an initiative capable yes of conveying our sustainability values, but at the same time able to generate a concrete benefit for the environment,” says Biagio Scalone, Managing Director and Country Business Unit Leader of Control Techniques Italia. “3Bee’s ‘Adopt a Beehive’ project excited us right from the start precisely because of its ability to combine these two aspects, the same aspects that we, with our products, manage to combine on a daily basis in a wide variety of industrial fields, guaranteeing customers efficiency, performance and greater sustainability“.
In addition to the adoption of the beehive, which specifically is located at a farm located in the province of Como, as part of the project promoted by 3Bee Control Techniques has also adopted 50 nettiferous trees located in the territory of Emilia, to be precise at another farm dedicated to beekeeping located in the northern part of Modena. These are 15 blackthorn trees, 10 hawthorn trees, 5 hazelnut trees, 10 blackthorn trees and 10 charcoal broom trees.
By adopting the hive, to date Control Techniques is helping to protect something like 333 thousand bees, what’s more, enabling the abatement of 3.6 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere due to the absorption action done by the 50 nettiferous plants.
