Bumblebee Detector
Bumblebee detector is a mobile application developed by Etteplan in Poland to collect data on the bumblebee population to revitalize the population.
In 2017 Etteplan Poland started to collaborate with Stowarzyszenie Natura i Człowiek (“Association for Nature and Human”), a non-governmental non-profit organization, which is dedicated to protect, for example, the country’s bumblebees.
The goal of this project was to monitor the bumblebee population, which has been observed to be dropping in Europe since the early 70’s. This was to be achieved by tracking bumblebee occurrences in Poland.
Data on bumblebees is collected in cloud
Etteplan’s team in Poland created a cloud based system called Bumblebee Detector, which is able to aggregate and display bumblebees occurrence data on an interactive map. This can later be used by entomologists for scientific work. To gather this data, a special community based mobile application was created.
The Bumblebee Detector mobile application identifies bumblebees using the phones built-in camera. After successful recognition, a photo along with GPS location data is sent to the cloud for further processing. The application is available on all Android devices.
With the help of this system scientists can use gathered data to revitalize the bumblebee population while introducing thousands of users into the fascinating world of bumblebees.
“Etteplan developed an application and a cloud solution that fit perfectly to our needs. The team was dedicated and their work was high-quality. We had a very tight schedule and the project team delivered on their promise and more. And it was so much fun to work with them”, says Mr Paweł Michołap (PhD) from the association.
Bumblebees are protected by law as they are extremely useful bees. Since the 1970s, there has been a continuous decline in the number of bumblebees in all European countries. Recognition of their distribution throughout the country will allow better protection of bumblebees and their habitats. These insects, due to the extremely colorful and unique coloration, are in many cases easy and reliable in species marking basing on the photograph.
For more information about the project, visit the website of Stowarzyszenie Natura i Człowiek (“Association for Nature and Human”) (in Polish only).