#challenge-bee-healthy

AI launch lab is partnering with Dawson College in Montreal, a leader within the Canadian college network in sustainability and climate action.

Climate change in the Montreal area can be an incredible range of temperatures and forms of precipitation any time of the year, with ranges from -35 C in the winter to +35 C in the summer! Periods of abnormally cold, hot, wet or dry periods characterize climate change and these changes influence society, the economy and the natural environment.

Some examples of this influence are the following: Temperature and precipitation influence food production, pollination of crops by insects, or can lower water levels during the summer that reduces the tonnage ships can load on the St. Lawrence river. It can cause isolated extreme weather events with intense winds, hail or snow, or abnormally high Spring-season temperatures that causes flooding when snow melt and rain combine. Summer heat waves can cause high pollution levels in cities, keeping people indoors. The economic, societal and environmental consequences can be significant.

Climate action will need predictive models to help understand what may be needed. We have an authentic challenge in need of bright minds capable of creating a predictive AI model that answers the following:

With crops pollinated by honey bees worth billions dollars in Canada, should farmers be concerned about weather and climate and how they influence bee activity? Mid-May to mid-June is particularly important for pollination (e.g. apples, pears, strawberries, peaches, grapes, blueberries).

Knowing that honey bees are less active on cloudy days, on days with winds above 25 km/hr, days with temperatures below 13 C, what does climate data for the Montreal area tell us about whether honey bees will be more active or less active in the future?

Additional facts:

Long periods of drought cause less nectar production in plants and this influences the bees ability to collect nectar to make honey. Have there been more extended dry periods?

Heat waves cause an increase in parasitism, weakening the hive. Have there been more heat waves in recent years?

The apple industry depends entirely on the honey bee for pollination. An apple tree blossoms only last 3-10 days in early to late May in the Montreal area. Are there now more extreme weather events than before that can influence bee activity (wind, rain, hail, snow)?

References Why are bees struggling? How can we help? (Podcast) https://soundcloud.com/why-and-how-podcast/episode-3-why-are-bees

Predictive modelling of honey bee foraging activity using local weather conditions https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-018-0565-3

Economic value of honey bee pollination of Canadian agriculture https://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/horticulture/horticulture-sector-reports/statistical-overview-of-the-canadian-honey-and-bee-industry-and-the-economic-contribution-of-honey-bee-pollination-2016/?id=1510864970935#a5

Datasets sources

We encourage the participants to as questions in the Slack channel #help_data_sources and #Help_mentors_experts. ECCC climate sciences and open data access will be available to support you

Exclusive dataset A spreadsheet containing the seasonal honey production for a number of colonies covering many years will be made available under a Montreal data licence for the duration of the Climate Crisis AI Hackathon 2021. Access will be given at the start of the hackathon.

Open data sources suggested Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) data MSC Open Data: https://eccc-msc.github.io/open-data/ Canadian Centre for Climate Services www.climatedata.ca

Climate data extraction tool https://climate-change.canada.ca/climate-data/#/

Historical data: Hourly weather station data available here: https://climate.weather.gc.ca/historical_data/search_historic_data_e.html Scripts to automate the download of many years is available under Get More Data

Solar radiation Historical data: https://climate.weather.gc.ca/prods_servs/engineering_e.html

Projected climate data: Users can select locations and get simulated past and projected climate data here https://climatedata.ca All the variables are listed here : https://climate-scenarios.canada.ca/?page=data-categories https://climate-change.canada.ca/climate-data/

CMIP5 https://climate-change.canada.ca/climate-data/#/cmip5-data

Others: Snow: https://ccin.ca/ccw/snow/links Daily Snow cover/depth/water equivalent is available here: https://nsidc.org/data/NSIDC-0447/versions/1 and here: https://ccin.ca/ccw/snow/current/swe