Ukraine is the largest producer and exporter of sunflower seeds globally, accounting for around one-third of the world’s sunflower oil. It is also one of the top ten honey exporters. There is a synergy between these two products, as honey production relies heavily on bees collecting nectar from sunflowers, while sunflower seed production relies on bees for pollination. Ukraine has approximately 400,000 beekeepers producing around 76000 tonnes of honey annually. However, honey production for 2022 has suffered severe consequences due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The invasion destroyed many apiaries near the front lines, and others were neglected as beekeepers left to participate in the war effort. As a result, honey production for 2022 was heavily impacted, exacerbating the typical 10% loss due to winter and pests. The war-induced challenges have put beekeepers at risk, potentially affecting them further if sunflower plantings for the 2022-2023 period decline as predicted by up to 48%.
Ukraine is a world leader in traditional beekeeping and the agricultural market,
but there is no honeybee pollination system in Ukraine,
although the need for it has emerged since the Russian invasion.
Amohive launched Ukraine’s first IT Apiary in Kyiv on 01 June this year. It was funded by UNDP and the Poland Challenge Fund. The IT Apiary is researching pollination and honey production with three species of local bees – Carnika, Carpatka and Sossimai. Last year, AmoHive won the European Bee Award 2022 in the category “Best Innovative and Technological Solution which can radically change the future of global beekeeping”.
The World Bee Project CIC and the Polish-Ukrainian technology company Amohive, a unique group of Ukrainian and Polish engineers, have signed a cooperation agreement to, post-conflict, jointly implement fully artificial intelligence-controlled smart apiaries across Ukraine to update beekeeping and pollination in Ukraine.
The World Bee Project and Amohive hope to launch IT Apiaries in major cities across Ukraine.
“We are planning joint actions to expand the new trend of smart beekeeping in Ukraine. Young people should be especially interested. Using new advantages in modern agribusiness, obtaining additional synergies for both people and the country – guarantees our competitiveness on the world market. Simply put, combining traditions, ingenuity, and IT is a chance for Ukraine.”
Igor Kurdin, founder and CEO of Amohive.
According to UNICEF, the war has disrupted education for more than five million children, denying children the sense of structure, safety, normality and hope schools provide.
Our IT centres will aim to educate schoolchildren in informatics and beekeeping to prepare them for careers in high-tech fields such as data science and research in beekeeping, pollination, and agriculture.
“The invention presented by the AmoHive team will modify the image of beekeeping for at least 50 years to come, just as the inventor Petro Prokopovich changed the world of beekeeping more than 150 years ago! Thank you to the AmoHive team for changing the future of beekeeping.”
Gilles Dryancour, John Deere’s Vice President of Public Relations,
Chairman of the European Association of Agricultural Machinery (CEMA),
and Chairman of the Strategic Committee of the European Bee Award.
To give new impetus, post-conflict, to the pollination market in Ukraine, we are looking for the most enthusiastic agricultural enterprises to jointly conduct a controlled pollination experiment and obtain statistics on the increase in yield in the same landscape.
If you are interested, please
Images: Amohive launched Ukraine’s first IT Apiary in Kyiv on 01 June this year.
