Eliyah Radzyner, beekeeper and co-founder at Beewise Technologies, opens the solar-paneled lid of the company's robotic beekeeping system, the BeeHome.
Photographer: Kelsey McClellan/Bloomberg
How Robotic Hives and AI Are Lowering the Risk of Bee Colony Collapse
After 150 years without minimal innovation, the beehive is getting an upgrade that is making it easier to protect colonies and the crops that rely on them.
Lifting up the hood of a Beewise hive feels more like you’re getting ready to examine the engine of a car than visit with a few thousand pollinators.
The unit — dubbed a BeeHome — is an industrial upgrade from the standard wooden beehives, all clad in white metal and solar panels. Inside sits a high-tech scanner and robotic arm powered by artificial intelligence. Roughly 300,000 of these units are in use across the US, scattered across fields of almond, canola, pistachios and other crops that require pollination to grow.