With Apiens – bee based intelligence, we bring together scientific method, beekeeping expertise and corporate sustainability to help companies, production sites and organisations better understand their relationship with the environment and the territories where they operate.
A new project is taking shape, and it is one we are especially proud to be part of: Apiens – bee based intelligence, the benefit company specialising in environmental biomonitoring with bees, founded by Amapola together with Apicoltura BeeO.
Apiens was created to offer businesses a practical, science-based and communicable tool to observe their relationship with the environment more closely. Today, companies are increasingly expected to understand, measure and document their impacts with greater rigour, while also building transparent relationships with local territories, communities, institutions, customers and stakeholders.
This is where bees come in.
During their daily activity, bees explore the area surrounding the hive, coming into contact with air, water, soil and vegetation. They collect traces, carry out millions of natural micro-samplings and bring information back to the hive, where it is deposited in hive matrices such as honey, pollen, propolis and wax. By analysing these matrices, it is possible to obtain useful indications about the environmental quality of the monitored area.
A validated scientific method
The Apiens method is based on the environmental biomonitoring protocol “Le Api Sentinelle dell’Ambiente” — “Bees as Environmental Sentinels” — developed by Apicoltura BeeO and validated by the University of Turin, Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences – DISAFA. The protocol makes it possible to observe bee wellbeing, the quality of hive products, the presence of any residues in the matrices and, when needed, specific tracers linked to production activities.
So this is not about placing a hive on company premises as a simple symbol of sustainability. It is a project grounded in observation, data, analysis and scientific method.
For companies, biomonitoring with bees does not replace mandatory environmental monitoring, but it does offer an additional, highly detailed reading of the territory. It can generate useful evidence to strengthen ESG pathways, sustainability reports, CSR initiatives and environmental communication activities. It can also become a valuable resource for designing stakeholder engagement projects.
Data, ESG and relationships with the territory
Apiens brings together complementary expertise: on one side, Apicoltura BeeO’s experience in beekeeping and bee-based biomonitoring; on the other, Amapola’s experience in corporate sustainability, ESG communication, reporting and the use of data to support stakeholder dialogue.
“With Apiens, we want to move beyond the idea of the corporate hive as a simple sustainability symbol,” says Francesco Collura, founder of Apiens and Apicoltura BeeO. “Bees are extraordinary sentinels: they explore, collect information and help us read the territory. Our role is to apply a rigorous method, care for the colonies and turn what bees gather into knowledge that is useful for companies in their relationship with the environment and communities.”
Projects to support corporate sustainability
Alongside biomonitoring, Apiens also offers training activities, educational kits for schools, environmental awareness programmes, open days, team building experiences and engagement projects for companies and territories. These tools are designed to make themes such as biodiversity, the role of pollinators, environmental quality and the relationship between business and community more accessible.
“Apiens was created to combine scientific method, beekeeping expertise and the ability to enhance data from a sustainability perspective,” says Luca Valpreda, founder of Amapola. “For companies, this means activating a concrete project, based on observation and analysis, while also opening up a more conscious relationship with the territory. This is why Apiens was established as a benefit company from the start: because of the strong connection between business and positive impacts on the environment and communities.”
With Apiens, we continue to follow a belief that has always guided our work: sustainability becomes more credible when it is rooted in data, listening and relationships. Even when the way forward is shown to us by millions of tiny environmental sentinels.
