BeeHero brings Healthy Hive Score metrics for measuring bee health, promoting precision pollination
BeeHero, a provider of data-driven precision pollination, introduced the Healthy Hive Score, a new metric for measuring bee health that promotes bee welfare management among industry stakeholders. The new assessment model arrives, in which the company estimates that the deployment of its Internet of Things (IoT) sensors collectively saved a quarter of a billion bees this past year, as beekeepers using BeeHero’s technology have reported 33% fewer colony losses compared to the US national average.
As the human population continues to rise, growers are faced with the challenge of producing more food with fewer resources. Bee pollination is indispensable to this production of the valuable and nutritious foods, providing [$18 billion (€16.72 billion)] annually to US agricultural crops.
However, nearly 40% of managed honey bee colonies in the US were lost between 2021-2022, posing a major threat to the pollination of these vital food crops and future global food supply. To ensure continued bee pollination, steps must be taken urgently to measure and promote bee welfare.
As a provider of precision pollination as a service (PPaaS), BeeHero possesses a large database of bee behavior in existence. Based on a combination of this data, drawn from hundreds of thousands of monitored colonies, and existing academic research, the BeeHero Healthy Hive Score provides beekeepers with an evaluation model to assess colony health based on colony growth, brood health, and queen presence, normalised against weather conditions and flight hours.
Utilising this system affords beekeepers a view of the health of their colonies, enabling them to take proactive measures to prevent colony loss and ensure bee welfare. For growers, this metric allows for more informed decisions about crop pollination that can maintain bee health while increasing yields. The Healthy Hive Score will also allow retailers and consumers to make conscientious, informed purchasing decisions to support bee welfare.
“While beekeepers and growers depend upon strong and healthy hives, they have long struggled to accurately see inside their hives to better understand and care for their colonies, leaving both their crop yields and bottom lines at risk,” says Omer Davidi, co-founder and CEO of BeeHero. “The Healthy Hive Score is our latest innovation providing a window into the hive, enabling industry stakeholders to take critical, data-driven action and better manage their colonies, their pollination, and their yields. We look forward to continuing to leverage nature’s data to provide further fruitful insights to our beekeeper and grower partners.”
The initial application of BeeHero’s Healthy Hive Score was during the 2023 almond pollination season in California. Growers received scores based on analysis of each of the orchards pollinated by hives under BeeHero management. Based on the average outcome of almonds per acre, growers that worked with BeeHero during this season collectively produced about 270 million pounds of almonds all grown under bee-friendly conditions.
“Bees are not only vital crop pollinators, but fascinating and vibrant creatures whose welfare should be thoughtfully considered and conscientiously managed, much like any natural resource we depend upon,” says Itai Kanot, co-founder and COO of BeeHero. “Today, beekeepers face numerous challenges in keeping their colonies alive and well, and there is growing societal awareness of the humane treatment of all animals raised for food, including bees. We are proud to have helped prevent the demise of a quarter of a billion bees, and we are thrilled to continue to offer beekeepers tools to measure the effectiveness of their efforts, assisting them in changing the fate of their colonies and ensuring thriving, buzzing hives.”
BeeHero’s precision pollination as a service solution provides growers with real-time visibility into the pollination of their fields, as well as the ability to measure and quantify its effectiveness, while offering beekeepers real-time insights into the state of their hives. The solution utilises low-cost, plug-and-play sensors that collect audio and biological data within the hive, which are then analysed with sophisticated AI and machine learning to provide beekeepers and growers crucial information that improves pollination and crop yields, lowers bee mortality rates, and enhances bee health. For more information about BeeHero and the Healthy Hive Score, visit BeeHero.
Comment on this article below or via Twitter @IoTGN