Member Article

Newcastle firm buzzing after BBC documentary

Newcastle-based Arnia Limited is all of a buzz after taking part in the making of a two-part BBC 2 documentary in which television presenter, Chris Packham and Professor Adam Hart, revealed the mysteries of the honeybee.

The final episode of the documentary, Hive Alive, aired last night on BBC 2 (22nd July), using a specially designed hive with an arsenal of cutting-edge technology including hive monitors developed by Arnia.

Chris Packham, of Springwatch fame, also put the very latest scientific findings about bees to the test using Arnia’s technology, to discover just why they are one of the most incredible creatures on our planet.

Arnia, based in Jesmond – Newcastle, is the company responsible for developing the world’s first commercially available remote bee hive monitoring system.

The system allows beekeepers, scientists and researchers to monitor a whole host of activity relating to bees, with the ability to monitor the status of bee colonies remotely, from any internet enabled device.

The company featured in the BBC2 programme, which used Arnia’s technology to monitor bee hive temperatures, weather conditions and even the sound that a bee makes, to find out more about the life journey of bees.

Huw Evans, Managing Director at Arnia said: “We were delighted to be approached by the BBC to take part in this documentary. It was a pleasure to be able to use the technology that we’ve developed to help the presenters and researchers study the bees.

“These are fascinating insects. The cross-pollination which takes place each time a bee visits a flower, is vital to our world’s ecology. Being able to study and research bee colonies using this sort of technology, the BBC was able to gain unparalleled access into the health and behaviour of bees and bee colonies.”

Bees can visit up to 2,000 different flowers every single day. By researching aspects such as the geographical locations that bees frequent, it could be possible to gain a vital insight into issues like the effects of pesticides on declining bee populations or Colony Collapse Disorder, where bee colonies suddenly disappear.

Arnia was the brain child of Founder Huw Evans, an electronic engineer by trade, who had a passion for bee keeping. This turned into a career following an idea he had to create a remote bee hive monitoring system. Since then the idea has evolved into the advanced technology that the company uses today.

In April 2014 Arnia received support from Newcastle Science City to help develop and grow the business. Through a funded business development research project, Arnia was able to approach a number of research institutions, like those featured in the BBC documentary, which resulted in a number of product sales.

Evans continued: “The support that we received from Newcastle Science City has led to a number of introductions to key research institutions and most excitingly, the prospect of some potential research collaborations which could roll out wider-scale bee hive monitoring, similar to that seen in the BBC documentary.”

Charlie Wainwright, Business Support Manager at Newcastle Science City commented: “Working with Arnia was a really interesting business support assignment, learning more about these incredibly important insects. By assisting Arnia to secure face to face meetings with key players in their industry, we were able to produce positive outcomes which will help the company grow its business.”

Arnia hopes to develop more system trials and collaborative research projects over coming months, collecting data for what is thought to be one of the largest databases of bee behaviour of any company in the world.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Newcastle Science City .