The 5^th inter­na­tion­al meet­ing of the bestHONEY project was held in Com­piègne from April 8 to 10, 2026. The goal of this Eras­mus+ ini­tia­tive is to improve hygiene, pack­ag­ing and pro­duc­tion stan­dards for high-qual­i­ty hon­ey at the Euro­pean level.

UTC has joined the Euro­pean Eras­mus+ project bestHONEY – Bring­ing Hygiene, Pack­ag­ing, and Pro­duc­tion Require­ments to the EU Lev­el for the Best Hon­ey. This two-year project, launched in April 2025, aims at har­mo­niz­ing bee­keep­ing train­ing prac­tices across Europe by devel­op­ing inno­v­a­tive, mul­ti­lin­gual dig­i­tal mod­ules acces­si­ble to all. Host­ed at UTC, this fifth meet­ing brought togeth­er sev­er­al Euro­pean part­ners: in Italy, the Azien­da San­i­taria Provin­ciale di Agri­gen­to and the Cen­tro Inter­nazionale di Altistu­di Agro­nomi­ci Mediter­rane; in Spain, the Depar­ta­ment d’Agricultura, Ramade­ria, Pesca i Ali­mentació, coor­di­nat­ed by the Provin­cial Direc­torate of Agri­cul­ture and Forestry of Eskişe­hir in Turkey. On the UTC side, the project involves a team from the Depart­ment of Bio­log­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, includ­ing fac­ul­ty mem­bers pro­fes­sors Claire Rossi, Lyn­da Boufe­nar, Aude Cordin, Miri­an Kubo and Franck Mer­li­er, work­ing close­ly with UTC’s Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions Directorate.

Two field visits in the Oise region…

“Over the course of these three days, the part­ners reviewed project progress, dis­cussed upcom­ing activ­i­ties and shared their exper­tise on improv­ing hygiene, pack­ag­ing, and pro­duc­tion stan­dards in the bee­keep­ing sec­tor,” explains Miri­an Kubo, head of the Agro-Resource Food Inno­va­tion pro­gramme at UTC. As part of the meeting’s pro­gramme, two field vis­its were orga­nized in the Oise depart­ment. “On the first day, we vis­it­ed the bee­keep­ing oper­a­tion in Vieux-Moulin, Le Miel de Damaris. The next day, we vis­it­ed the bee­keep­ing oper­a­tion in Ménévillers, L’Abeille Clé­ment.” These vis­its allowed par­tic­i­pants not only to see the hives up close but also to learn about bee­keep­ing prac­tices in France and to exchange ideas and experiences.

… and in Turkey

At the kick-off meet­ing in Eskişe­hir, April 16–18, 2025, in Turkey, UTC was rep­re­sent­ed by Aude Cordin and Miri­an Kubo. They shared their exper­tise dur­ing two sci­en­tif­ic pre­sen­ta­tions on the fol­low­ing top­ics: “Nutri­ent con­trol and nutri­tion in bee­keep­ing” by Aude Cordin and “Local bee breeds in France and their char­ac­ter­is­tics” by Miri­an Kubo. “This first meet­ing also pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exchange best prac­tices, as well as to take field trips, such as a vis­it to a local api­ary and a hon­ey pro­cess­ing facil­i­ty. We are delight­ed to be involved in this mean­ing­ful project, which places bee­keep­ing at the heart of Euro­pean chal­lenges relat­ed to sus­tain­abil­i­ty, qual­i­ty and inno­va­tion. Also worth not­ing is the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of free train­ing mod­ules in five lan­guages, designed for all pro­fes­sion­als in the bee­keep­ing sector.”

KD