Blog

The participating citizen scientists in Austria were very curious about their results from INSIGNIA year 1. As we were curious too, we attempted to provide the results of the metabarcoding and pesticides analyses as quick as possible to them – right after receiving the raw data from the labs and after submitting them to the EU. Further, it was also important to us, to ensure anonymity for the participants. Therefore, each citizen scientist only got his/her individual results.

We decided to not only send out the raw data files, as they are rather difficult to interpret for non-scientists. Instead we performed individual and basic data analysis for all of the 5 participants of year 1 and we arranged them in an excel file with several tables.

The main page (see figure below) explains some basics of how to handle the document and links to all of the result-tables.

 

Kristina Gratzer

The global Covid-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of life. As well as ceasing one-to-one teaching, many universities have closed down their laboratory research programmes and fieldwork for the foreseeable future. As an international research project, INSIGNIA, which is using honey bees to sample their environment for pollution, has also been affected.

This weekend is the setup weekend for the INSIGNIA 2020 sampling, which is being carried out in nine European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and the UK). Beekeepers will be inserting the first ApiStrips (special plastic strips coated with a substance designed to absorb chemical residues) into their hives for the start of this year’s sampling. With movement restrictions in all countries, this has, however, led to some changes.

Fig. 1. GoTo Meeting between International Coordinator Sjef van der Steen, National Coordinator Fani Hatjina, and Greek beekeeper citizen scientists.

Continue reading “How Covid-19 has affected the INSIGNIA project”

Nine Citizen Scientists, plus one extra, the National Coordinator and of course our Project Leader, Jozef Van Der Steen , gathered together but experiencing social distancing, to discuss everything related to the start of the INSIGNIA study 2020 in Greece! So, how we did it? Like everybody else! Video conferencing! Technology in hand!

Amazing how easy people can come close, even if they are sitting in their living room, late in the evening thousands and thousands KM away! Well, we had some technical problems, not everybody managed to join in , but we talked about what we had in our agenda.

After all, it was not that difficult, or bad, It was successful! Thank you Jozef for your patience in our Greek discussions! We promised to do it again sometime in early summer, now that we know how to do it!

In the picture, Jozef is also showing his new T shirt wiht INSIGNIA logo on it! A product from Flemming and Jozef! We definately going to get some of those for everybody!

Written by Fani Hatjina

National Coordinator for Greece!

Denmark
The worldwide situation is in all aspect difficult and problematic at the moment. We wish the best for everybody out there to stay safe and take care. INSIGNIA keeps going and that does challenges us in some ways. We have started to meet in different way. At the moment we do test different types of online tools to meet.
Continue reading “New ways to meet!”

1st of April 2020. Maybe we delayed a bit to get ready, coronavirus and all, but here we are! And it is not a joke! Here are the locations of the Greek Citizen Scientists for the INSIGNIA study 2020! A big thanks to the friend beekeepers participating!

All materials needed by the CSs are ready to be posted. Stickers for the colony identification, labelled small pollen sample bags with everybody’s name, Apistrips in their bags also with a paper clip and labelled, larger bags also labelled for each individual sampling round (SR), pencils for writing and marking on the labels, extra aluminum foil to wrap up the used Apistrips and measuring caps. And GOOD LUCK!

Written by Fani Hatjina,

Natinal Coordinator INSIGNIA study

During the last week all nine Latvian citizen scientists (CS) received Insignia tool box. They will be ready to start work for Insignia in mid of April.
Insignia tool box in Latvia is fully prepared for a whole season, except lacking ApiStrips which will be added during the sampling season by national coordinator (NatCo). Each tool box contains materials for two colonies.

Continue reading “Insignia tool boxes 2020 ready for Latvian beekeepers/citizen scientists”

INSIGNIA study Year 2

First results analysis of Year 1, allowed a decision taken by the whole consortium about the best matrixes to be ring tested during Year 2 in 9 European countries and 9 apiaries per country. Therefore for Year 2, two (2) colonies will be used per apiary, and apistrips together with pollen from pollen traps will be sampled biweekly, from April to September 2020. The countries participating in Year 2 are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and UK.

The map of the locatons were the participating apiaries are is right here!

Continue reading “81 beekeepers -Citizen Scientists around Europe ready to start the INSIGNIA study Year 2!”

At the Nordic Baltic Bee Research meeting in February in Oslo, I did meet Sissel Goodgame. A Norwegian female beekeeper showing the most wonderful pictures of her new home in the artic close to some of the northernmost part of Norway. Close to 1.800 km north of the capital Oslo in Norway. Same distance as from Copenhagen to Rome. Showing the extend of Norway to the north. Very close to the Russian border. Nature is wild, clean, unpolluted, rough, and amazing. From the 17^th of May there is 24 hours daylight. Everything is close to nature. Sissel and her husband moved from Bergen to the new place. Since there is no varroa in the northern part of Norway, Sissel had to buy new colonies and transport them on a trailer over 1700 km. Long distance transport!

Continue reading “Arctic beekeeper taking part in INSIGNIA”

Two instruction videos are now on the road in English version. Sorry the Danish accent, but this is how it is. The Danish translation is ready and the Austrian one will be added very soon. The other countries will translate as soon as possible. So now we just need April to turn up and get started.

It was quiet a big challenge to shoot the instruction videos in Denmark in the beginning of march. Lucky, we had no snow, so we could pretend is was summer. But even this was very difficult, because we had the worst windy weather condition since long, with heavy storms and rain. Rain and rain and rain. And yes, cold as well. Bees did not like it for sure. But we had to do it!
Continue reading “Instruction videos ready”

The study start for INSIGNIA 2020 is one month away, but we already shipped the tool boxes to the nine Austrian citizen scientists. The tool boxes include the majority of the materials needed for the INSIGNIA 2020 study. The materials are sufficient for 2 bee hives, 1 installation round (=study start) and 10 sampling rounds. The pictures below show the content.

Continue reading “Tool boxes 2020”