DEVELOPMENT OF A SOFTWARE PLATFORM FOR MAKING RATIONAL MANAGEMENT DECISIONS IN INDUSTRIAL BEEKEEPING

Abstract

Beekeeping is one of the agricultural sectors where digital technology is not widely utilized. This results in high proportion of manual labor used in production of honey and related products, low productivity of bee colonies and decline in production efficiency in general. Purpose. To create a methodology leveraging software platforms to help automate and optimize agricultural workplaces. This will bring substantial information and visibility to agricultural specialists/workers which will allow them to predict inven-tory and other outputs from beekeeping farms and infrastructure. The methodology includes the calculation of indicators, which considers the influence of external factors on the apiaries’ performance depending on the terrain and weather conditions. Materials and methods. The developed methods were derived by making calcu-lations based off environmental variables such as terrain and weather conditions. It is these variables that affect the movement and migration of bees. During the process of environmental monitoring, honey collection and production were observed and noted as the initial array of research materials. The software platform was designed and optimized leveraging methods of mathematical and data modeling, along with various algorithms were used. Results. The new software solution was successfully tested and validated in several agricultural organizations of Stavropolsky region. Conclusion. The obtained quantitative characteristics such as increase of the higher-quality honey and decrease in production costs confirmed the usefulness of applying the newly created technological solution, which will further provide support and propel the beekeeping industry to a higher level of development and advancement.