If you attend agriculture tradeshows such as the Almond Conference or the World Ag Expo, it’s hard to ignore—everywhere you turn, from tractors to sorters, there are pieces of autonomous technology that use data to take action on behalf of growers in realtime. Up until about five years ago, pollination was one of the most anachronistic exceptions to the industry’s focus on technological innovation: even sophisticated, multinational agribusinesses had no better option than to bring bees to pollination in a hive designed by Lorenzo Langstroth, a beekeeper born in the 1800s who would have struggled to imagine broad adoption of electricity, let alone computers, Internet connectivity, or AI.
Now, however, as is often the case with innovation, pollination technology that didn’t exist at all a decade ago is advancing at a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pace. Today, some farm managers may still not be aware that there’s a better way to pollinate, but some day soon, very soon, growers who employ them will consider it unacceptable to leave such a big determinant of their crop yields up dumb luck, and what could be dumber than a wooden box?
In order to optimize crop pollination, like in every other industry, technology, data, and action are required, if not mandatory. To help explain the paradigm shift occurring in pollination, we have created the infographic below which shows how changes in technology enable the transformation of different practices essential to successful pollination:
In the past, when growers relied on traditional hives without integrated technology, every safeguard and quality check for their bee colonies had to be done manually in the field; by humans. Even with experienced, trustworthy beekeepers, unexpected occurrences still struck—particularly during transportation. To mitigate this risk, independent experts were often deployed, on top of all other pollination costs, to manually grade all, or more likely a small sample, of the bees that had been ordered. At best, this grading process gave an incomplete snapshot of hive strength at the start of the pollination season, and at worse, it did nothing to detect any additional issues that might arise over the course of the pollination season as temperatures fluctuated and pesticides were applied, by necessity, onto crops.
Even when a problem was identified, beekeepers had to administer treatment in-person, in the fields—an environment that neither lends itself to timeliness or efficiency. Lastly, it almost goes without saying that “dumb” hives provided growers and beekeepers with no way to protect bees from often short-notice pesticide applications, which are critical to prevent devastating yield losses, beyond “spray and pray”: spraying at night when bees are not active and praying that colony health was not impacted by pesticide residue on and around around hive entrances. No data was conveyed to decision-makers; no action could be taken remotely; no optimization algorithms were applied for the benefit of the bees, and in turn, for the benefit of the crop. Hence, traditional hives are referred to as the “Dumb” solution.
Many beekeepers and technologists saw an opportunity. As sensor technology matured in other areas of agriculture, similar solutions followed in beekeeping. Initially, when technology for hives started becoming available, growers were eager to have, for the first time, reliable data and a mechanism for greater visibility during pollination. During the grading process at the beginning of pollination, colonies could now be scanned with infrared for a more complete picture of hive strength. Even more tantalizingly, with sensors that could be kept in hives on an ongoing basis, there was now the promise of a completely remote alternative to grading that could provide visibility into hive health throughout the entire pollination season.
However, sensor technology have major limitations that led to underwhelming results. First off, a sensor based on sound, heat, or weight does not give beekeepers a detailed visual picture of each frame of bees, so we frequently hear from them that after getting a sensor notification, they still have to drive out to conduct an in-field inspection to determine the root cause of a problem. And furthermore even with accurate inspection data, treatment still has to happen manually in the field. What’s the use of data if it is incomplete, received too late, or is cost-prohibitive to act on? In the case of pesticide exposure mitigation, the sensors on the market today still cannot detect the presence of pesticides and do not offer any more practicable solutions for harm reduction than wooden boxes do alone. These solutions are referred to as “Passive” solutions since no automated action can be taken, remotely, without in-field human intervention. Passive solutions are a step in the right direction, but, fall short of what is truly necessary in the Pollination industry, similar to other areas of modern technology-based Agriculture.
Some of the most consistent feedback heard from growers in the last few years is that they are moving beyond Passive hive sensors, but still have a mandate to adopt innovative technology that has measurable impact on yields.
Active Solutions are ones that do not require in-field visits to carry out beneficial actions for the bees and the crop. Remote inspections of bees, remote grading of hives, and remote actions to deter real-time issues and optimize hive strength, are an integral part of any Active solution in the pollination space. Active solutions rely on far more advanced technologies such as computer vision, precision robotics, and advanced AI algorithms, aiding bees in thermoregulation, improving flight hours, and detecting threats to the colony including pesticides, disease, or parasites, then treating the issues remotely, all in real-time. Advanced software allows Growers and Beekeepers take control all throughout pollination from a desk or mobile device. Most notably, hive entrances can be shut remotely via an app, just as soon as pesticides are applied nearby. This is the first real technology-enabled integrated pest management culture-based solution for reducing bees’ exposure to pesticides, and best of all, the intervention can be implemented completely remotely, without ever visiting the field! Whether it be one acre, or one million acres, at a click of a button, bees could remain unharmed, and crops can enjoy fresh morning healthy colonies pollinating their flowers.
This is just the beginning for Active solutions in Pollination; there are many more potential improvements that will emerge as technology improves, resulting in healthier colonies, that provide for better crop yields.
“Dumb” pollination solutions are a thing of the past. Furthermore, make sure to not remain Passive with your pollination. Active pollination solutions are the only way to respond to the changing times: increasing labor shortages and costs, higher bees colony collapse, and unexpected weather patterns.
The evolution of commercial pollination.
We look forward to seeing pollination technology evolve onwards and upwards; and always stay Active!