An ag tech company this month announced a new product line of smart sensors designed to monitor beehives to save labor and prevent hive loss.

The new technology, called ApisProtect, uses sensors, software and other technologies to monitor honey bee colonies.

“Our science-based honey bee monitoring technology empowers beekeepers to manage their apiaries more efficiently, reduce labor and transport costs, and focus on cultivating larger and stronger colonies,” said Fiona Edwards Murphy, CEO of ApisProtect.

Murphy co-founded the startup in Cork, Ireland, but the company’s first target market is the U.S.

In the initial investment stage, global investors including Finistere Ventures LLC and Atlantic Bridge Capital “seeded” ApisProtect with $1.8 million.

The technology relies on sensors. Each device is about the size of an average cell phone. It uses a combination of cellular, satellite and radio networks so it can work even in remote locations.

Each unit has four main sensors that collect data on temperature, movement, humidity and sound. The technology uses complex machine-learning algorithms to interpret these variables.

For example, entomologists say that bees in a hive without a queen often move in different patterns and make different sounds than contented bees that have a queen. An ApisProtect device can pick up on these subtle changes in movement and sound and alert a beekeeper to check that hive immediately.

“It looks like (ApisProtect) could potentially be useful, especially to commercial beekeepers,” said Katie Buckley, pollinator health coordinator at Washington State Department of Agriculture. 

But beekeepers who try the new technology should use it to supplement, not replace, manual monitoring, Buckley said. 

Donal Ryan, venture partner and a top ag investor at Finistere, estimated a single monitoring device — one is needed per hive — costs a beekeeper only a few dollars per month, but he estimated the return value would be at least threefold.

Ryan said in addition to monitoring bee health, ApisProtect also saves beekeepers time and labor costs.

He estimated that in commercial beekeeping operations, 80% of hive inspections are unnecessary. Beekeepers, he said, often look at healthy hives and miss unhealthy ones because the workload is simply too large. With ApisProtect, he said, beekeepers can prioritize hives they get digital alerts about.

“Labor comes in consistently as one of the biggest issues. And that’s really been exacerbated with COVID, too. This gives the ability to direct labor in a more targeted way,” he said.

Carole Hutchinson, an external spokeswoman for ApisProtect, told the Capital Press that ApisProtect has been tested on the field with more than 20 million honey bees worldwide.

One leading commercial beekeeper in the U.S., who has chosen not to be named yet, tested the technology as a “guinea pig” in 2019 and 2020 before the company launched its product line. That beekeeper grew the hives by 40% instead of experiencing hive loss during the tests and got an estimated annual return value of $100 per hive.

Oregon and Washington beekeeping groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The new technology is available in the U.S. just before the 2021 almond season, and the company is targeting some of its advertising at California pollination businesses.

Learn more about ApisProtect at: https://apisprotect.com/