3Bee flies with technology to monitor the well-being of bees and the planet

There are entrepreneurial stories that grow through contamination. Of ideas, of models, of people. This is what happened to 3Bee, born from the intuition of two PhD students in electronics and biology, passionate about the environment and data. They are Niccolò Calandri and Riccardo Balzaretti. Both of them, in order to improve environmental protection, started from that often neglected treasure that allows us to survive, namely bees. "We realised that we had to start with bees, which are sentinels of the environment and bio-indicators. They are the ones that allow us to study environmental indicators. We monitor them thanks to a sensor that listens to what they have to tell us. So from the health of the bees and pollinators we are able to objectively understand how the environment and biodiversity of an area is doing,' says Calandri, CEO of 3Bee, an Italian excellence founded in 2016 and engaged in the nature-tech sector.

The activity started with technological development in beekeeping, with the development of a monitoring system to control honey production and bee health. This is Hive-Tech, over time installed on four thousand hives throughout Europe. A success story in integrating technology for a sector based on traditional practices. Today, 3Bee works with four thousand farmers and beekeepers, five hundred companies, 14 universities and research centres. Turnover is four million euro with a forecast of five million for next year. The company, ranked 197 in the Leader Growth 2025 ranking by Statista and Il Sole 24 Ore, has 49 employees in three locations in Italy and one in Germany. The team has around 30 technical profiles: these include software developers, biodiversity experts and engineers focused on the Internet of Things. Today, services are offered to hundreds of companies in 25 countries around the world. "We shifted to the provision of B2B and thus business-oriented services because we noticed the evolution of the market and felt how the necessary awareness related to climate change had become a strategic element for organisations. The demands linked to biodiversity ecosystems are linked to an indispensable climate and environmental strategy that today's most enlightened realities must possess, even with specificities linked to different functions,' Calandro points out. Meanwhile, 3Bee has been selected by the European Innovation Council, winning a EUR 2.3 million tender.