Hivetracks and Bee Informed Partnership
New things that I learned from our class discussion on data access, security and intellectual property with Hivetracks and the Bee Informed Partnership:
1. Honeybees will form a clump around the queen when they are swarming, and they will identify a new home based on information from drones leaving the swarm.
2. Patents are used by companies to attract investment but take years to secure, and software can be patented, not just having copyright.
3. Honeybee hive locations in North Dakota are required to be reported publicly on a USDA site.
4. Some commercial honeybee operations with more than 500 hives are still managed without digital data collection.
5. Code ownership can be contentious for research projects and partnerships spanning different universities. This was surprising to me because I usually think of these as having limited direct business income even if things like Bee Informed Partnership interact with industry.
The most surprising thing that I learned was how far hives are transported for pollinating almonds in California during late winter and Spring, with many being located in the northern Great Plains region during other parts of the year. I would have expected hives to come from other parts of California and the west coast, and I didn't realize that it required more hives than could be found in that region of the country.
Comments
Post a Comment