In an agricultural community in the Galilee, an Israeli start-up has built robotic hives that monitor bees 24 hours a day and reduce the mortality of these large pollinators, guarantors of food security.
“There are two million bees here,” says Shlomki Frankin, entering a 12-square-meter white container set in the middle of an avocado field on Kibbutz Bet Haemek in northern Israel.
The container called “Beehome” (bee house in English) can house 24 hives, this 41-year-old farmer, equipped with a hat with a veil to protect himself from possible stings, explains to AFP.
These bee houses work like normal wooden hives, if it were not for the fact that they are managed by a robot placed inside, which watches over the insects, controls their habitat and takes care of their care, explains Frankin, an employee of the Beewise society in the origin of this invention.
During a control visit, the farmer observes the electrical device that moves through the center of the buzzing box and removes a honeycomb where the bees have gathered.
Artificial intelligence
“The robot is equipped with sensors that allow it to know what is happening inside the honeycomb,” Netaly Harari, Beewise’s director of operations, explains to AFP.
“Thanks to artificial intelligence, our program knows what the bees need,” he says in the workshop where these large metal hives are assembled.
The robot can also automatically distribute sugar, water or medicine. If there are problems, it alerts the beekeeper through an application and he can decide whether to intervene remotely from his computer or go in person.
The solar-powered hive can also regulate temperature, suppress noise and extract honey thanks to an integrated blender, says Netaly Harari.
The company will be able to start producing honey from the end of May, the “world’s first honey made with artificial intelligence,” claims Harari.
How will the world be fed when the bees are dead?
For Shlomki Frankin, “the robot is a tool for the beekeeper, but it does not replace it”.
“I can perform many simple tasks remotely, such as widening the hive or reducing it (…) or let the robot do that and concentrate on other tasks”, which allows “saving a lot of time”, he explains.
A hundred of these robotic hives have already been installed in Israel and another ten in the United States. Beewise contemplates entering the European market in a couple of years.
In April, the company created in 2018, which already has more than 100 employees, raised 80 million dollars from investors to develop its exports.
world bee day
According to Professor Sharoni Shafir, who directs the center for the study of bees at the Hebrew University of Rehovot, technology can help protect colonies from these insects, increasingly fragile.
“Sometimes it takes several months for a beekeeper to become aware of a problem. With the robot, we can deal with the problem in real time, which reduces bee mortality,” he tells AFP.
In recent years, many specimens disappeared in the world, victims of the “colony collapse syndrome”attributed to the combination of several factors.
“The decrease in flower fields under the effect of construction has reduced the sources and the diversity of the bees’ diet”, explains the expert.
To this must be added the use of pesticides, diseases and parasites such as the destructive varroa, a devastating mite, he lists.
“In Israel, between 20 and 30% of hives disappear every year”, Shafir warns. And “we depend on bees,” he says, recalling that a significant part of human nutrition results from the pollination that these insects guarantee and that allow plants to reproduce.
More than 70% of crops (almost all fruits, vegetables, oilseeds and protein crops, spices, coffee and cocoa) depend heavily on these animals.
“Bees and other pollinators are essential for food security and nutrition”, summarizes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which celebrates World Bee Day on May 20 to highlight the importance of its conservation. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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