How and why beekeepers participate in the INSIGNIA citizen science honey bee environmental monitoring project

Abstract

In the “contributory” citizen science project INSIGNIA, beekeepers carried out non-invasive sampling of their own honey bee colonies for an environmental investigation of pesticide residues and pollen plant origin. We surveyed several traits and attitudes of 69 of the volunteering beekeepers from ten countries. We found that their motivation was similar to that found in previous studies of environmental volunteer motivation, with helping the environment and contributing to scientific knowledge being strong motivators. Our results suggest that receiving laboratory analysis results of the samples from their colonies is the most meaningful way of appreciation for beekeepers, but is not their primary reason for participation. A citizen scientist beekeeper in this study spent on average 10.4 working hours on the project during a sampling season. Our study indicates that most of our volunteers would participate in similar future investigations, or would recommend participation to other beekeepers, underlining the potential of beekeepers as citizen scientists in honey bee research.

Citizen Science Impact on Environmental Monitoring towards SDGs Indicators: The CASE of SIMILE Project

“…In fact, as noticed by Jalbert and Kinchy [21], the deployment of sensing technologies is often seen as a threat by citizens, afraid of losing importance as primary knowledge source. However, surveying the attitudes of nearly 70 volunteers, it was noticed that having access to the results of more accurate sources (laboratory analyses) was positively seen, even if not a main motivational driver [22].…”

Megachile sculpturalis (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae): A Valuable Study Organism for Invasive Pollinators and the Role of Beekeepers in Ongoing Monitoring Programs

“…The aim of our citizen science projects is to locate the non-native bee in Europe, with the support of the public (Ćetković et al, 2020;Lanner et al, 2020aLanner et al, , 2020b. Beekeepers are valuable participants in collaborative approaches, like citizen science projects (Brodschneider et al, 2019;Gratzer & Brodschneider, 2021). Many beekeepers feel close to nature, spend a lot of time outdoors, have a common interest in flying insects and a fair understanding of environmental processes.…”

CSI Pollen: Diversity of Honey Bee Collected Pollen Studied by Citizen Scientists

“…The involvement of citizen scientists is common in ecological research [44][45][46]. Beekeepers, as a group of citizens with special knowledge and equipment, have been employed in several scientific investigations on bees [47][48][49][50].…”