Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Sciences at the Jagiellonian University (UJ) in Krakow, together with 17 European partners in the Better-B project, will work on restoring harmony and balance in bee breeding. The project has received funding of €6.3 million from the European Union, the UK and Switzerland.

The Better-B consortium consists of 18 partners from 14 countries and is coordinated by Professor Dirk de Graaf of Ghent University.  

The Consortium partners are convinced that the way to harmony and balance is shown by so-called Darwinian colonies, abandoned or feral colonies that have survived in the wild or have been selected based on an assessment of their condition. 

Such bee colonies, however, usually lack many of the beneficial traits that are important in modern beekeeping. The approach of the scientists from the Better-B project is to try to understand the processes and mechanisms driving the functioning of resilient Darwinian colonies in nature and to implement them into modern beekeeping practices using, where possible, the benefits of advanced technologies.