Monitoring Bee Health

Seventy-five percent of crops depend on pollination, but BeeHero CEO Omer Davidi says the bee mortality rate, caused in part by climate change, is alarming. BeeHero’s Pollination Insight Platform was developed to help commercial growers pollinate efficiently and solve problems threatening these vital insects. The platform works with a small device, which features nine sensors and can be placed inside hives to monitor bee activity, track visits to flowers, and measure environmental conditions. It identifies “whether bees are going through a stress situation”—caused by anything from toxic chemicals to humidity to illness—and allows farmers and beekeepers to mitigate any factors under their control, says Davidi. So far, the company has built 400,000 sensors, provided free to growers across the U.S., Europe, and Australia.