BeeHero zeroes in on the hum of the hive
Remote sensing technology is allowing farmers to track bees within the hive and during pollination to improve yields.
BeeHero CEO & Co-founder Omer Davidi tells Brownfield the Pollination Insight Platform follows managed honeybee and wild pollinator activity through heat mapping, sound frequencies, and other insights.
“It’s about creating this huge data set of 10s of millions of samples, practically a day where you can start and identify those patterns,” he says. “And starting to ask the questions that later allows you to improve the things that needs to be improved.”
BeeHero is also working across universities and with the USDA to advance pollination research.
“Are there certain practices being implemented in the field that affects the pollination quality or the behavior of pollinators?” he says. “Whether it’s inside the hive, identifying the queen situation, viral disease, bacterial disease might, problem starvation situation, exposure to chemical and many other things.”
A study earlier this year with the technology and USDA determined east facing honeybee hives have increased pollinator activity.
Davidi says crop pollination becomes more effective when farmers can make adjustments for both native and managed bees.
