Grant: Applied Research Tools and Instruments Grants

The National Bee Diagnostic Centre - Technology Access Centre (NBDC-TAC) is the only laboratory in Canada dedicated exclusively to bee diagnostics, offering a comprehensive array of analyses and applied research services to the beekeeping industry. The Centre opened for business April 2013 and has experienced exponential growth in the number of samples received, reaching close to 20,000 diagnostics last year. Our customer base is comprised of hobby and commercial beekeepers, beekeeper associations, provincial apiculturists, provincial and federal scientists, college and university professors.The volume and complexity of data NBDC-TAC collects and generates has increased exponentially as a result of this growth, outpacing the capacity of an in-house database and reporting program. The existing system, which has managed our needs until now, lacks the capabilities to properly cope with the continued expansion of services and operations. The Centre is in a critical stage of consolidation and expansion that requires a more professional and sophisticated laboratory management system to meet its current and future demands. The Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) described in this proposal, will allow the NBDC-TAC to integrate the processes of capturing, generating, storing and analyzing data. The automation of these services will ease and speed the way we analyze data and report to all stakeholders and provide a more robust platform to store date safely and securely.The LIMS will contribute to the NBDC-TAC goal of becoming an international accredited lab. The system provides all the processes, analyses and controls needed to comply with the standards set by the accreditation agency. The NBDC-TAC will represent the Canadian beekeeping industry at the international stage of national reference laboratories where diagnostic protocols are proposed, discussed, tested and standardized.